Fallout
by Dreamthrower
Summary: Post Season 2: Stefan is gone and, despite a bite from a werewolf and a deathbed kiss from Elena, Damon is still here. His bad. The stage is set for Delena roadtrips, bloodlust, and doppelganger hijinks. What might have happened if Elena stayed human and everyone else stayed in character ;) Rated M for occasional language/violence. COMPLETE :)
1. Fallout

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters or book series.**

_Hello and welcome, readers!_

_So, I delved into fanfic to deal with the impossible cliffhanger left by the season 2 finale (remember that?). _

_My story bears almost no relation to the TVD trajectory past season 2, and is basically old-school vampire Damon and human Elena working out their shit in the midst of battling the big bad. I loved those characters - messy adorable Damon and big-hearted in-denial Elena - and I think they deserved their proper love story, dammit!_

_Hope you enjoy (and if you do, I'd love you to leave me a review :) )._

_On with the story!_

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Damon stands alone in the parlor of the Salvatore boarding house, his face bathed in the sunlight that streams through the patchwork windows. He reflects on how he was standing on this same faded rug, under a similar patch of sun, just the day before.

Everything had been different then.

And,_ sure_, suicide by suntan had not, as a rule, been high on his list of aspirations for the century, but it had seemed clear it was the right thing to do at the time. He had been accepting of his death, if not exactly welcoming. Found a peace of sorts.

Now the peace is gone. And he couldn't be more unclear about what the right thing to do is now.

He looks down at his unblemished arm, reassuring himself he didn't dream up Katherine's visit and the cure she fed him. The dark, violent web of poisoned flesh has receded without a trace. All that's left are some lingering aches and a bone-deep weariness. Truth be told, he's not actually sure how much of the latter is a side effect of the werewolf poison, and how much relates to the despair he feels at the absurd circumstances of his physical salvation.

Elena is curled up in Stefan's bed upstairs, asleep since crying herself to an exhausted oblivion last night.

Damon is here, alive, and Stefan... Stefan is gone. By now, far from Mystic falls.

The Stefan that Elena knows (that Elena loves) is surely far more gone than that.

The guilt roils inside his chest, clutching at his insides as it sucks him down. This time there is no fantasy of a fiery escape. After all that has been sacrificed for him to live (_why, he isn't worth it?_) he can't consider the possibility, even if he felt so inclined.

Besides, Elena has never needed him more.

Or resented him more.

It's his fault, after all, that his brother is lost. Elena may not have wanted Damon to die, but he knows she would never have considered sacrificing the noble Stefan an acceptable price for keeping his demon brother's undead heart beating.

If he is honest, it is nothing new to find that the blame for the problem of the day lies at his feet.

But really, he had been trying _so_ hard this time.

_Typical_. He'd finally manned up, been ready to take responsibility for his rash stupidity, to accept the consequences of this life and death game they've been playing on the chin. For the first time, he had seen a glimmer of hope for redemption through the sacrifice of his own miserable existence... And Stefan had to jump in and ruin it. Upstage him even, now that he really thinks about it (and why should that even surprise him?).

He knows full well that he's being a selfish prick, but since the alternative is to be a weak, maudlin (useless) prick, he is philosophical about it.

His keen hearing picks up movement from upstairs.

By the time Elena makes it, straight-lipped and bleary eyed, downstairs, he's made eggs, poured juice, and the yeasty smell of toasting bread has begun to permeate the boarding house kitchen.

Before Elena has a chance to voice what he knows is coming, Damon heads it off with a gruff, "You need to keep your strength up".

Elena nods, slumps dejectedly in front of the plate set on the table, but makes no move to eat.

"We'll find him. We'll bring him back."

Elena pushes a square of scrambled eggs around her plate but makes no response. Damon moves closer, hesitates. He is far from sure of his welcome right now.

In the end he settles for taking in Elena's fragile lines from a respectful distance. She is unrecognizable as the girl he's watched over the last few weeks. The girl who lost so many loved ones, but kept going anyway. Kept fighting. Even after the shock of Jenna's loss, that Elena had retained a quiet strength. This Elena looks… broken.

She replaces the fork on the table. A tear slips down her cheek. Damon feels something constrict inside him.

He tries again, stronger this time. "Elena, we will find him. I will find him."

He moves until he is bent beside her, finally breaching the distance between them to turn her chin towards him with one finger. Her flinch at the contact is not entirely unexpected, still he masks the hurt he can't help but feel. Damon looks intently into her eyes, his blue eyes fierce in their sincerity, his voice low and certain. "I will bring him back to you, I promise."

Elena nods dumbly.

Tries a smile.

Almost succeeds.

Damon sighs, dropping his hand back to his side. The space between them, so close for a moment last night, has with subsequent events expanded so suddenly it now yawns, a vast, lonely distance between them. Though they're in the same kitchen, Damon thinks they may as well be on different continents at this point.

Which is why, when he finally turns to stride purposefully from the room, he is surprised to hear her first words of the day.

"Where are you going?"

Her voice has the roughness of the recently woken, but the words are strong.

Damon takes a moment to silently compose himself. He schools his features into a carefully jaunty grin before he turns back to face those wide brown eyes in that beautiful too-pale face.

"Haven't you been listening Elena? I'm a man with purpose. I'm gonna feed the hungry, save the world and rescue baby bro from the big, bad, bogey-vamp."

Elena is still nursing a frown, but it has lost some of its edge of miserable desperation (for Stefan) to make room for a new edge of belligerent distrust (for Damon).

Damon is unfazed.

"So, why don't you go finish breakfast so we can tick off feeding the hungry, and I'll take care of the rest. Don't wait up honey, I might be late for dinner." He spins on his heel and continues on his path to his room, determined to slough off his melancholy. He may have screwed up, again. But he is going to fix this, dammit.

Even in his compromised state, his focused burst of vampire speed means that he is halfway through packing by the time Elena bursts into his bedroom. He is cheered to note her cheeks are flushed and some of the spark is back in her eyes as she rounds on him.

"Damon, where are you going? What exactly are you planning on doing?" She spies the vampire compass sitting amongst the jumble of items on the bed. "You aren't seriously planning on tracking Klaus with that, are you?"

Damon hesitates. He had become accustomed, over his century and a half of death, to not having to answer to anyone.

It had been so much easier.

"No, Elena, as a matter of fact I'm not."

He sighs at her questioning look. Since Elena entered his life, it seems she's made a mission of questioning everything he does. He sometimes wonders if she is some kind of agent of the fates, sent to single-handedly even the score on his metaphysical balance sheet.

"Judging by what Katherine had to say before she took off, it seems Klaus is set to go on a murderous rampage across the country, and possibly the planet. If I wanted to chase him across the countryside, no doubt I could follow the trail of blood easily enough."

"But… You're not going to?" Elena frowns in confusion. Damon can see the concentration evident in her furrowed brow as she tries to follow him. He admits he enjoys the game. The longer he can draw it out the longer he is the center of her undivided attention. Elena, when determined to get to the bottom of something, can be like a dog with a bone. And sometimes, he is more than willing to be her bone.

He's willing to be her a-lot-of-things really, but that's beside the point.

"If I'm to have any advantage at all, I need to be ahead of him. Somewhere where he's going to be. Where there is a chance of me making some kind of plan, being ready. Not two steps behind." Damon continues to collect the items from his bed and toss them carelessly into his lightweight bag.

He sees her glance at his toiletry pack, where a vial of vervain nestles next to a bottle of aftershave. She seems distracted, perhaps wondering would happen if Damon were to inadvertently confuse the two. With a small toss of her head she refocuses. "Still don't get it. How are you supposed to use this," she picks up the spelled pocket watch, "to find where Klaus is going to be?"

Damon pauses and turns to directly face her, lips forming a predatory, mirthless smile that Elena hasn't witnessed on Damon's face for a very long time.

"I'm not going to use it to find Klaus. I'm going to use it to find Katherine."

"No!"

The outburst seems to surprise Elena almost as much as it surprises Damon. Watching her shake her head, legs planted, with that stubborn tilt to her chin, Damon can't help the pang of love that stabs through him. He impatiently tries to shake it off – like he isn't in enough pain already.

"Elena, this is our best option. Klaus is going to want to recover Katherine again. She's personal for him. We can lie in wait, make our move while he is distracted with her." He walks around the bed, takes her hands in his own. "I know this is the best way to get to Stefan". This time she does not recoil or resist, but instead glares at him, fire in her eyes.

"No. I know we need to get Stefan back, but I'm not letting you go running into this half-cocked and getting yourself killed. I can't… I won't… lose you too." At those words, the sun comes out for a moment in Damon's world. He feels the warmth of it penetrate through the cold in his undead bones. "You can't…" her voice cracks before she composes herself and continues firmly, "don't be an idiot Damon."

Damon has never been more pleased to be called an idiot in his life, but he masks it with an air of cocky arrogance as he swaggers back to finish packing and secure the bag's clasp. "Oh really, Elena? I assume you have a better option ready, then?"

Damon has a genuine smile for the fuming expression he sees framed by her dark tumble of hair. Yes, this Elena is much better. He will goad her for the rest of eternity if it means he never has to see the light go out of those eyes again.

Then she surprises him again.

"Yes. As a matter of fact, I do."

Damon waits, raising his eyebrows in skeptical challenge.

"Come on Damon. First of all, it is going to be extremely difficult to use this compass without affecting it with your own vampire presence, or Caroline's, or any other vampires who are likely to be closer to us than Katherine is right now."

Ok, so maybe the girl has a point, but still… "So what's your brilliant brainwave then?"

"Well…" Elena frowns, and Damon tries not to be distracted by the adorable way her nose crunches up when she is deep in thought. "Maybe Bonnie can do a tracking spell. Katherine's been living here right? She must have left some hair, or something Bonnie can use to locate her. And Jeremy and Alaric might have some ideas. Not to mention Caroline." Brown eyes plead with his. "I know you Damon. I know you want to go out, right now and do something about this on your own, but we need to be smart about this. Klaus is no pushover. You can't do this alone." Her lips set into a familiar stubborn line. "I won't let you".

"Won't let me, huh?" Damon rasps in a suggestive tone he knows will infuriate her. He is actually having much more fun now that he's discarded the mantle of sympathy and brotherly respect that seemed so ineffectual earlier. Giving Elena something other than her sorrow to focus seems to be proving far more effective.

He saunters into her personal space and lingers there long enough to see the expression in her eyes fade from angry determination to something approaching awkward discomfort, before laughing and moving past her to make his way downstairs.

Yes, and since last night's confession (OK, it wasn't love, but it was like, and a chaste kiss was better than no kiss at all) Damon reflects that this new approach could prove to be very fun indeed. Besides, the truth is, they both need distracting from this messy train-wreck of a situation, and Damon is more than willing to sacrifice himself to the cause.

"Well, what are you waiting for Elena? Are you calling Bonnie, or are you leaving this to me after all? I thought you just told me this was about teamwork". Though the pain in his joints is yet to diminish, there is now a lift in Damon's step that had not been there earlier this morning.


	2. Remains of the Day

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

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The parlor should seem plenty full with all the people in it, but it seems empty without Stefan. It's a motley crew that remains. Alaric, the history teacher-come-vampire hunter, is looking slightly more haggard since losing his second love to unnatural causes. The young but proud witch, Bonnie, huddles knee to knee with Jeremy, his right arm protectively curving over her shoulder. Tyler is poised on one side of the love seat, looking as if he is ready to bolt if someone (Damon) looks at him the wrong way. Caroline sits beside him. She squeezes the werewolf's leg and gives him an encouraging smile, before turning to stare warningly at Damon.

Damon, leaning languidly against the drink stand, tries not to laugh at the slip of a vampire trying to look threatening in blush pink lipstick. When Elena adds her more convincing frown from the opposite side of the room, he raises his hands in mock surrender.

"Relax, everyone. While I am surprised Barbie brought her lapdog to the party, _I'm _not going to be the one to bite." Tyler squirms at the jibe, looking uncharacteristically bashful (though Damon can't tell if he is actually blushing under that olive skin). Caroline and Elena both open their mouths, so Damon jumps in before he has to defend himself against the rebukes of two angry women (have they already forgotten it was he who almost _died_ thanks to this puppy's inability to keep his snout shut?).

Time to get to the point.

"So Judgy, can you do the bitch-tracking spell, or not?"

He notices that, despite their recent truce-of-sorts, Bonnie hasn't dropped the aura of haughty disapproval she always oozes in his presence. He wonders if she ever has trouble navigating when she is around him – surely it's difficult to see where you're going when your nose is tilted that high?

"Yes. If you bring me something of Katherine's, I can do the spell to locate her. But what are you going to do then?"

"Yes, what are you going to do then, Damon?" Ric looks up, and for the first time Damon notices the lines of weariness and shadows under his eyes. "Throw yourself on the sacrificial fire, because Klaus hasn't had enough bodies burn for him already?" Damon is silent for a moment, and moves to pour a generous measure of scotch from a crystal decanter.

"You look like you need a drink, Ric." he drags Ric's name out for emphasis, punctuating the sentence with a thrust of the glass into the man's slightly shaking hands. He doubts anyone else notices the slight squeeze he gives to Ric's fingers as he retracts his own. Well, except maybe Elena. From the way she's got him fixed in her laser stare, he doesn't think she's missing much of anything he is doing right now.

No problem. He can help her out with that. He pours another scotch for himself and walks over to settle himself on the arm of the sofa where she is sitting. When she rolls her eyes and stubbornly moves further along the sofa to put some space between them, he takes the opportunity to nudge himself into the small gap she's created. Nonchalantly, he stretches his free hand along the back of the chair behind her. She half turns away from him, arms crossed in irritation, but still close enough for Damon to capture the faint fragrance of her shampoo. He allows himself a brief inhalation of peach-scented heaven before turning back to business.

Ric shakes his head, but Damon can tell he is trying not to laugh. "The plan, Damon?"

"Well, it's more of a… work in progress. This is just the first phase. Once I've found Katherine, it's only a matter of time until Klaus shows. Then I'll find a way to distract him, and pull Stefan out."

"Any ideas on how you are going to do that? Don't you think we need a little more information about Klaus and what he's up to?" this time it's Jeremy. Damon suppresses a sigh. Here we go, little boy Gilbert wants to get in and play monster sleuth.

Elena has obviously read between the lines and come to the same conclusion. "No way Jeremy, don't you even think about it."

"I'm just saying-"

She doesn't let him finish. "You are not going anywhere near him. No digging for answers. You are staying right here and… doing… homework."

Damon interjects smoothly, "Not the strong finish I would have liked, but your sister is right. It's far too dangerous for you to go sniffing around. Speaking of which…" He brings his gaze back to the lovebirds on the loveseat (come on, if not yet, it's only a matter of time). "Caroline, you can take Tyler with you."

"What? What do you mean? With me where?" He watches Caroline's perfectly-manicured brows dip in confusion.

"You can be our eyes and ears on what Klaus has been up to. While I'm trying to get ahead of him, you two can follow the blood red road behind him. Jeremy has a point. Some intel might give me some ideas for the phase two approach."

"OK." Caroline nods. "I want to help, but Tyler doesn't need to be a part of this. He's not as strong as we are, and even under a full moon it's not like he has control of his power. It's not safe for him to come too."

"Oh come on blondie. I forfeited my life to save his useless hide, now Stefan's forfeited his to save mine, when you look at it that way, it's really his debt that we're trying to square here."

"Damon, this is not Tyler's fault!" Damon can't say Elena's response is unexpected. He had been doing a mental coin toss as to whether her do-gooder mentality or Caroline's indignant protection of her boyfriend was going to strike back first.

"It doesn't matter." Tyler interjects, turning towards Caroline, "I'm not letting you go alone. I'm coming with you." He cups her face between his hands. "Sorry Caroline, this is not negotiable."

Caroline smiles shyly. Damon can almost see the cartoon bluebirds circling. Yup, definitely just a matter of time.

"Great. It's all settled. Lady and the tramp go looking for answers in the post-Klaus carnage, Bonnie locates Katherine, and I'll take it from there. Jeremy, you can make sure your sister stays out of trouble, and Ric, you do the same for Jeremy." Damon grins at Elena. "You were totally right about this. I love teamwork."

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The tracking spell takes next to no time, Bonnie's still-augmented powers easily pinpointing Katherine to the vicinity of a small town about 800 miles out of Mystic falls.

With this done, and everyone's duties assigned, Elena watches as Damon bustles everyone efficiently out the door, swinging it shut even as Jeremy promises that he and Bonnie will keep an eye on things and update everyone if Katherine's location changes.

Damon turns, swiping his palms against each other and looking altogether pleased with himself. Until he sees Elena's face. She's sure, from the way he avoided speaking directly to her through most of that meeting, that he has sensed her displeasure with the new (barely) improved plan. No doubt he found it easier to ignore with the buffer of a room full of people. But now it's just the two of them. She crosses her arms and looks at him through narrowed eyes. See him ignore it now.

"Oh come on. _What_?" Damon's expression reminds Elena of a schoolboy's blustering attempt to plead ignorance to a reprimand he knows full well is coming. Elena reminds herself that she is the only student here. Damon has been out of school longer than anyone else she knows.

"You don't _really_ think you're leaving me here, do you?" she demands.

Of course, she knows that's exactly what he thinks he's doing. That's all anyone ever does. They're all so busy running around making sure Elena stays safe. Making sure Elena... stays. She is beginning to lose patience with having to fight so hard to be a part of everything. Anything. They seem to forget that this is her life. It is her life that, in the end, they aren't allowing her to be a part of. Does no one see the irony in that? She'd made a decision, during this Klaus saga, that she was not going to allow it to happen anymore. It's a pledge she intends to keep.

Damon's lips purse so tightly they are in danger of disappearing completely. He takes a step forward. His fingers reach, twitch, halt. She can tell he is fighting an urge to physically shake some sense into her.

"Elena, you see how this has been working, don't you? Every time we successfully save someone and get clear we seem to lose two or three others in the process..." Damon throws his hands up in exasperation. "We have to limit the risk when we go in, or by the time we are finished there won't be anyone but Klaus left standing."

"You mean because you have accepted that you are probably going to die, and that's OK with you. But I'm not allowed to make that same choice because... I'm not allowed to do anything." Elena's anger fades, and she sighs.

"I have no power here, Damon. No mystical powers, like Bonnie. No supernatural powers, like you or Stefan, or Caroline, or even Jeremy with his ring. The only power I have over any of this is choosing my actions, and no one even allows me that." She wrings her hands in frustration.

Damon takes another step towards her, stilling her hands by taking both of them gently in one of his own. He uses the other to tuck a straying lock of hair behind her ear.

"You do have a superpower Elena. You bring everyone together. You're the center." He smiles at her, head tilted to one side.

Damon has a lot of smiles. Elena figures she knows most of them by now. Mostly, they are masks, or tools, used to flirt, or flaunt. To convince people he is a trustworthy ally, or the answer to their sexual fantasies, or the most frightening creature they have ever had the misfortune to cross. To convince them that he doesn't care. That he is having fun. That he is OK. Elena hasn't fallen for those for a long time.

But this is the rarest of them. It is a real smile. And Elena pauses in her argument just long enough to smile back. Damon's grip tightens in response.

"Everyone who was here today, they came because of you. We're a big, monster-ass-kicking-team. Between us all, we could maybe rule the world Elena. But if we did, we'd only be doing it to give it to you."

He shrugs. "You are the most powerful of us all, because without a center, all we are is our individual pieces. We're no good in pieces Elena."

It seems to Elena that Damon's declaration has started to drift from the group's perspective to something a little more personal.

"Our enemies know that. That's why it's too dangerous for you to do this." His hand slips forward to cup her cheek, blue eyes intent (aren't they always?).

"It makes you a target, and not because you are the weakest of us. We know you aren't. You are the strongest. Don't think I don't realize that. That we don't all realize that."

Elena looks down, trying to contain where her insides are threatening to overflow with something unnamed... Something that might spill out into tears if she stands under his penetrating gaze much longer. Instead she focuses on his lapis lazuli ring, his strong white fingers and the way they contrast against her darker more slender ones.

"And what then?" she asks. "If you leave, both you and Stefan will be gone. What if Klaus comes after me?" She can tell from Damon's immediate hiss that he hasn't considered this. "You don't know that I haven't become personal for him as well. Or that he won't come back for me out of sheer curiosity, once he finds out that I'm still alive."

He allows her to pull his hand from her face, to bring it between them so that it is now her hands clasping his. "And Caroline will be gone. Bonnie... We don't know if she's even strong enough to take on Klaus now that the curse is broken. We do know that she'll die trying. So will Jeremy and probably Ric for that matter."

Elena looks up at him, pleading. "Don't you see? It's too dangerous for me to stay? For them and for me?"

Because she is watching him so closely, Elena sees his face clench in frustration, the tic that plays along his jaw when he acknowledges defeat. He pulls free of her grasp and sulkily retrieves his whisky, exposing a strong pale column of throat as he empties the glass.

Elena wishes, for a moment, that he wouldn't drink quite so much. That thought lasts just as long as it takes her to consider the alternatives. Recalling those alternatives prompts her to trot over to pour another measure into his glass before holding it back out to him. Part peace offering. Part apology. Part plea. Her actions earn a shake of the head and a chuckle from Damon.

He falls silent for a moment, considering and watchful, before reaching for the glass. He traps her fingers between his for a moment longer than necessary. Elena continues to regard him steadily, not taking the bait. He sighs.

"Ok Girl Friday, you can tag along. But this time it's my rules. What I say goes, you understand?"

Elena understands. Damon is saying this is not to be like last time. Last time she insisted that the Salvatore brothers do it her way, by her rules, with no lies, secrets or hidden agendas.

Damon had agreed to her request then.

And she is agreeing to his now, with a sharp nod and a neutral expression.

Damon looks far from convinced.

He is right to be skeptical. She remembers how spectacularly Damon failed to honor their previous agreement, and if it comes down to it, she has no qualms about sticking to his request just about as well as he stuck to hers.

"I packed while we were waiting for everyone to come over. Just let me grab my bag." She runs to get her knapsack from Stefan's room without turning to see Damon's reaction to this evidence of the premeditated nature of her rebellion.

Another sigh and an "it figures" shrug later, and Damon grabs his car keys and heads out to the Camaro.


	3. On the Road Again

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

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This is a bad idea. A very bad idea. Damon just knows it. Looking across to where Elena is curled up on the passenger seat, her face peaceful in sleep, he is reminded of their trip to Atlanta. She saved his life on that trip, and it seems he's been paying for it ever since.

She was right. It wasn't safe to leave her behind. But it isn't safe to keep her with him, either. And now that there's only one Salvatore to take care of business and no one left to play bodyguard, he finds that seems to be one Salvatore short.

It's funny, this thing between him and Elena and Stefan that he (on an optimistic day) likes to think of as a love triangle - he'd been seeing it as such an inconvenient, unfortunate clusterfuck of emotional entanglements. He'd been wrong. When you are Elena Gilbert, one self-sacrificing superhuman lover is never going to be enough to get you through your teenage years alive. Hell, with the amount of trouble Elena manages to get herself into, a love tetrahedron would be better.

A growl escapes him. How exactly did things manage to get so wonderfully screwed?

"Damon?"

Uh oh. Looks like he woke up sleeping beauty.

Elena sits up, noticing the fading twilight outside the car windows "I slept all afternoon?".

"You've had a ragged few weeks. I think you've got a bit to catch up on."

"I think you're right. I…" She stops.

"You… You what?" Damon prompts, but Elena just shakes her head and looks out the window. They are driving through a small town, and the roadside lights are starting to flicker on, one by one.

"C'mon Elena," Damon reaches an arm over to gently bump her shoulder with his fist, "it's a roadtrip. It's about companionship, gut spilling, and telling stories, like the one about that time you and your girlfriends got into that semi-naked pillow fight and things just got _completely_ out of hand…" he smirks at her encouragingly.

Elena rolls her eyes and bumps him back.

"Damon, you don't _need_ to live vicariously through my stories about imaginary pillow fights with girlfriends. I've heard about your little sorority soirees."

"Oh you have? Jealous, huh?" Damon looks across at Elena, who appears to be ignoring him in that "I'm not dignifying that with an answer" kind of way.

"But seriously Elena," he puts his sober face on, "there's no need. Next time I have a soiree I'll send you an... Owwwww." That was not a bump of the fist. That was definitely a punch. Damon just smiles wider.

They drive on in companionable silence for a while. At least, Damon thinks it's companionable. Or maybe Elena is giving him the silent treatment. With women, sometimes it's hard to tell. He looks over at her to judge her mood.

Her head is leaning back against the headrest, the smallest of smiles on her face. She looks… relaxed. More relaxed than he's seen her in a long time.

He doesn't want to ruin the mood, but he's still curious, and this might be his best chance. Besides, ruining good things is kinda his forte, right?

"So what was it you were saying before? Something about not sleeping?"

"What? Oh. It's nothing." Elena waves a hand dismissively. "So I've had some trouble sleeping, a few nightmares of late, no big deal. I mean, it's no wonder, is it?"

Damon makes a non-committal "hmmm" noise. "You know, you don't seem to have any problems sleeping when I'm around..."

He blinks innocently, "You should try sleeping with me more often."

Elena actually groans at that one. "You wouldn't worry that women falling asleep in your company could be considered a _negative_ reflection on yourself, of course?"

"Elena, I'm hurt." His smile says otherwise. "And no. I'd take it as a _very_ positive sign if a woman happened to feel safe enough to sleep more soundly with me than... anywhere else". For _a woman_ substitute _you_ and for _anywhere else _substitute _with Stefan_. "Then again, I am a mass-murdering psychopath, so I guess I'm working with a different set of checks and balances than your average guy." He is trying to be lighthearted, but he isn't sure he's pulled it off. Elena is looking toward the horizon, not saying anything. Damon doesn't imagine she can see much. The last of the sunlight has long since bled from the sky, and even with his vamp vision the highlights of the distant landscape are "black meets black".

"I take it you wouldn't think it means anything?"

Now why did he go and say that?

"Damon..." She's got that warning tone in her voice. The one with the faintest trace of underlying fear. Anyone else might miss it, but being something of an expert on (other people's) fear, he can smell a molecule of it from fifty paces. What he can't tell for sure, is what exactly she's afraid of.

But this is a line he hadn't intended to cross. Blatant flirting, lascivious glances, invasion of personal space – it's ok to make it all about sex. He understands, on some level, that that isn't what makes her feel threatened. She might act irritated by his carelessly flirtatious plays, but she'll also brush them off without batting an eyelid. And though it is no longer any secret that there is more to this for him, something that has nothing to do with sex (something that has more to do with what he needs to keep breathing), that is a far more carefully handled truth.

Though it's not the truth of his feelings for her that he has mishandled this time. That's not what has caused her sudden withdrawal from their easy camaraderie.

He's not supposed to suggest that this might mean something to more than just him.

It doesn't help that, last time he did, the discussion ended in him snuffing the life out of the person she loved most in the world (even if it was only temporarily). How could she not feel all warm and fuzzy about someone like that?

"Elena, I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

But he did. Of course he did. Damon never and always means it. He is a mess of utterly conflicting desires. Every one of them violently passionate, ever fighting for the right of supremacy in any given moment.

Though he does manage to hide it well most of the time. He's made his own art form of making intense ambivalence look more like apathy.

Sometimes, though, when in the company of a brown-eyed girl who sees the good in everyone and refuses to give in, he can feel his clamoring insides calm for a time. He can pause, and breathe, and loosen the white-knuckle grip he uses to keep things from splitting apart.

He owes it to her, to ease this for her. He owes her so much more than this.

"Look, it would genuinely please me, to think you might feel safe with me. But I know you do feel safe with Stefan. And that it's different." Elena looks over, still slightly wary. He's not doing this very well. Right. He needs to drop that F-word.

"We're friends. I'm glad we're friends. I know the other night..."

There's a new tension in the car now. He can feel it. He can also feel that this is the point where he can either fix this or lose her completely.

"I know the other night... concessions were made for a dying man. I know you don't approve of a lot of the things I've done. Hell, neither do I." He's rambling now. Good God, Damon, pull it together.

"I am thankful for the peace you tried to give me. But I'm not going to mistake it for approval of what I am. Of who I am."

Should he mention the kiss? Reassure her that he hasn't read more into the brief lip-to-lip contact than he should? Because he knows that there is nothing to be read into it.

Doesn't he?

OK, skip the kiss.

"The point is, I know I am a dick. I know I don't deserve your friendship. I'm trying not to screw it up, OK?"

Damon looks over at Elena again. Inwardly, he sighs in relief. He's done it. She's giving him that soft smile that says "I am an angel and I forgive you".

"OK... dick."

And they both smile.

A few hours later they pull into a little country motel for the night. Despite her earlier nap (or perhaps because of it) Damon notices Elena's eyelids are starting to drop, and he is starting to suffer some serious cramps. How long is it going to take him to fully recover from having that wretched were-slobber in his system?

He actually stumbles while trying to extricate himself from the driver's seat of the Camaro. _How embarrassing_.

Elena, of course, is now shooting him concerned looks.

Oh look, now she's coming around to his side of the car, probably to offer a shoulder. Or maybe a walker. Yeah, he is so feeling like Mr. Suave right now.

"Damon, are you OK? You look..."

He waves her off.

"No need to fuss, Mother Theresa, just give me half an hour of R&R and you can have your dance partner back".

"Fine." She tosses her hair and strides off to reception.

Damon stands alone, belatedly reflecting on how lovely Elena's shoulders are, and thinking he really should have let her offer one. He wonders how long he could have gotten away with leaning into her softness before she caught on and threw him off. Suddenly grumpy, he follows her inside.

###

The room they are given is basic but clean. The water runs fast and gratifyingly hot, though showering takes twice as long as it needs to (since sadly, Elena declines Damon's offer to share).

By the time Damon emerges from the bathroom, he finds the lights out and Elena already asleep. He selfishly watches her in the dark for a time before stretching his limbs out on the other bed.

The silence is broken by his phone vibrating on the nightstand. He jumps to grab it before the buzzing wakes her, taking only seconds to noiselessly exit the motel room and answer the phone.

"Damon?"

"Hi Blondie, what's the news?" He doesn't like the way her voice sounds. Unsettled. When vampires do unsettled, it is not a good sign.

Neither is the fact that she hasn't answered him yet. Blondie talks. A lot. She can't help it. He finds her sudden mastery of silence disturbing.

"Caroline? Has something happened? Is everyone OK?" He doesn't like this thing sneaking up his spine. It feels a little like panic. Of course, Damon doesn't panic. And he doesn't care.

_Ugh._ When did everything get so complicated?

"No, everyone's fine. Well, I mean, no they're not really, but we, we're all fine. Sort of."

"Caroline. The point. Right. Now."

He hears some scuffling, some arguing, and then a more masculine voice cuts across the line.

"Dude, don't yell at her, she's had a tough night." Tyler. He hears him in the background now, telling Blondie she needs to go lie down.

"What's going on Tyler? I thought Caroline said she was OK. I swear to God, if someone doesn't start giving me some answers, I'm going to reach through this phone and–"

"Calm down, man. We're OK. We've just been at... er... the scene of one of Klaus's recent visits and uh, the people there, they weren't so OK."

No shit, Sherlock. Because they figured Klaus was going to do what? Put on a traveling circus, provide some clowns? Maybe do a little mimework at the local children's hospital? Bet his witches could do a mean magic show.

"So what's wrong with Caroline? She's a vampire, I can't imagine her fainting at the sight of a few dead bodies?"

"They weren't... They aren't all dead. Some of them, when we got there, they got up, started moving around. Caroline said, it looked like a couple of vampires. She thought... From the bite marks, she thought they looked familiar, like maybe she could tell... one of them was Stefan."

Damon knew this is what was going to happen. Exactly this. This is not news, not really. So why does it feel like someone just dropped a rock in his belly?

More scuffling. Blondie again.

"Damon. I think Stefan was compelling the humans he was attacking, to like, stay down and act dead until they left. When we arrived, it wore off, they were trying to get away."

So his brother was still trying to fight the good fight. Admirable.

Stupid, but admirable.

"Did you get anything out of them?"

"Not really. They were just - they were really scared, I had to compel them to calm them back down. While I was at it I made them tell me what they remembered. Sounds like there was a lot of massacring, not so much talkies going on. When they were all down, they were mostly dead or passed out, but one... One of them was conscious enough to hear Klaus talking to someone about a doppelganger."

Icy fingers wrap around Damon's chest.

"What about a doppelganger?" Damon's voice is eerily level.

"Something about a spell. A spell on the doppelganger. He was asking if they were ready to go ahead with it." Then, as if realizing she's made a mistake, Caroline tumbles on, eager to get the words out. "But then he said something, to Stefan I think, like 'wouldn't he enjoy it, when they both had Katherine back', something like that, so it couldn't have been about Elena. I mean, Katherine's a doppelganger too right? And Klaus doesn't even know Elena is still alive..."

And he won't ever find out, if Damon has anything to do with it.

"So is that it?"

"Well, yeah... I mean, I wasn't sure it was a good idea to just... Leave that mess for anyone to find, so we burned the building all the bodies were in. I fed some blood to the people who made it, cleaned them up and compelled them to go home and forget everything."

So that's why she's feeling weak now. It would have taken a lot of blood to heal a room full of casualties. Damon grudgingly admits to himself that Blondie is not being anywhere near as useless as he'd expected her to be.

"OK, make sure you feed up. And don't get too close. Anything you find out is no good to us if you are too dead to tell it." He snaps the phone shut and goes back to bed. Much later, he even sleeps.

Until he's woken by screaming.


	4. Dream Lover

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

* * *

><p><em>###<em>

_Darkness. There is darkness, and blood. Lots of blood. She can smell it all around her, feel its slickness on everything she touches._

_Frantically, Elena looks for the light. She knows there must be light, somewhere, if she can just see it, get to it in time._

_Stefan. Stefan is here. She can see him, turned away from her. He doesn't know she's here._

_He'll help her find the light, help her get out of here. She screams for him._

_She realizes her mistake as he turns and starts towards her._

_He is bringing the bloody darkness with him._

_Behind him, another figure comes into view. He smiles, teeth painted in red._

_Klaus._

_"Katerina. I knew you'd come."_

_She screams again._

"Hey, hey, it's OK, I'm here, it's OK". Elena bolts upright, but is stopped when she hits the barrier of arms, encircling her in a band of iron. She frantically struggles, and the hold immediately gentles in response.

"Shhh. Shhhh. Elena, it's me. It's Damon."

Damon? Damon is here too? No, wait, it's still dark, but she can't smell the blood anymore. Just the freshness of soap, and a faint underlying mix of cologne, whisky and that subtle essence that is Damon Salvatore. She breathes it in. It is somehow steadying after the coppery tang of all that blood.

"Damon?" She thinks she should feel embarrassed by how breathless she sounds. But her heart is still thundering, her chest still heaving, and the image of Klaus's bloody smile is still printed on the back of her eyelids. "Damon? I... I was dreaming?"

Damon reaches an arm behind her and starts rubbing her back in long, soothing strokes.

"I know. I heard you. So much for my calming presence." Elena blinks at him. She thinks she is supposed to know what he is talking about. Except he isn't talking about Stefan, or Klaus, or a sea of blood, which is all she can remember in the world right now, so he's not actually making any sense at all.

"Hey." The stroking pauses, and he angles his head in a little closer. His bare shoulders are gleaming in the dark, and Elena has resurfaced enough to note a hope that his lower half is more adequately clothed. "This is where you come in with 'no Damon, don't worry, you still bore me to tears', something like that".

OK, she's getting it now. She's got to get a handle on the space cadet impression she's got going on. She consciously tries to calm her breathing, relaxes her muscles and forces her facial expression into a "see, I'm fine" arrangement.

She obviously isn't doing a very good job, because Damon looks hard into her face, sighs, and pulls her forward into the curve of his side.

She realizes she is shaking, and now he must realize it too. He moves slightly behind her, so that he is leaning against the wall behind the bed, and pulls the covers up to cover her shoulders.

He isn't trying to talk to her anymore, not really. He is making some kind of soothing noises, but if they are words, they are too low for Elena to make out. He shifts slightly, settling his warm bulk more comfortably behind her back, and loops an arm across her front, using his fingers to gently free the hair that sticks to her clammy forehead. She can feel the light touch of his chin on the top of her head.

She knows she should be strong. Tell him she is fine, that he should go back to bed (his bed). But she knows if she does she will be afraid again. She will lose this warm, secure bubble that she feels like she could stay in forever. She wants to be selfish, this once, and grab the peace that's being offered.

And then she feels guilty. Not because she has a man who is not Stefan in her bed (after all Damon is literally, not euphemistically using the space). But because he was right earlier, when he said he knows that she hasn't given him her approval. She does judge him. Accuses him. Rebukes him for coming too close, crossing unspoken lines. And he accepts it. Thinks he deserves it. But for all his cocky swagger and snarky comebacks, she knows that when she needs him, he will come running. Unconditionally, unwaveringly. Dropping his defenses in an instant and offering a heart-breaking tenderness he would not allow anyone else in the world to see. And she knows she doesn't deserve to take it. That it isn't fair to take it. Not really.

But she does it anyway.

She's not sure how long she lies there, eyes closed, leaning into his warmth. He doesn't move, doesn't complain. Doesn't suggest that he'd be warmer under the covers, or that she'd be more comfortable naked. Soon, Elena is drifting back to sleep.

"Damon?" she mumbles.

"Mmmmm?" Judging by his voice, he's not far from sleep either.

"I do feel safe with you".

He doesn't say anything. But she feels him smile into her hair, and a brief pressure she thinks is a kiss, as she sinks into a peaceful slumber.

* * *

><p>###<p>

Damon wakes to find himself lying on Elena's bed. His bare legs are telling him there is a nip in the air this morning, but it hardly registers when his upper body is caught in a tangle of bedclothes and brunette. She looks peaceful, a sleeping angel. And right now she is in his arms. An aching tightness forming in his throat prompts him to order himself to stop being such a pussy (where is his scotch when he needs it?).

As much as he would like to linger here and prolong the exquisite torture, he doesn't think Elena will welcome the arrangement once she is conscious. Besides, from the way she is curled with her back (and other luscious parts of her anatomy) snuggled hard into him (_dear God_) he is fairly sure her sleeping body has mistaken his for Stefan's at some point during the night.

If that thought alone wasn't enough to kill the mood, the thought of her having to suffer through that moment of loss when she realizes the body in her bed is not Stefan's, that Stefan is in fact so far from being safely in her bed that she can't be sure she'll ever be nestled with him like this again... No, that's a twist of the knife she doesn't need, and one he sure as hell won't be a party to. He ever-so-gently extricates himself, but can't control the impulse to press a kiss he knows he shouldn't give into the silky hair behind her ear as he leaves her.

He decides that this morning he'll be having a cold shower. The icier the better.

###

Elena doesn't talk much as they start back on the road, stop by a gas station for fuel and breakfast. She slouches in the passenger seat, eating a buttered muffin in subdued silence.

Damon has put it off long enough.

"I need to tell you something."

"What is it?"She doesn't add "and why don't I already know about it" but it's implied by her tone.

"Blondie rang last night, while you were sleeping".

He pauses for a second, just to gauge her reaction to the mention of, you know, last night. Since her face is now both irritated and questioning, it seems she is more concerned with him getting to what Blondie was calling about than any awkwardness about having been a shaking, beautiful mess in his arms. He thinks that is a good sign. Probably.

"Klaus is proceeding pretty much as expected. Carnage central."

"And Stefan?" Elena's mouth is a straight line. She is holding herself a little too carefully.

"Looks like he was there too. He... he tried to give as many people as he could the chance to... make it. And Caroline made sure they did." That's as delicate a way as he can think to put it.

"He might not do that next time. May not... have done." Something in her expression worries Damon.

"No, he might not... But..." he isn't sure if he should say this... "what he's doing, it's not the safest thing Elena."

She's eyeing him warily.

"You're worried Klaus will find out."

"Yes. And if he does... He won't be pleased." Elena nods, but she's not looking at him. She's looking straight ahead. Damon wonders what she's thinking.

"But at least we know we're on the right track. They were talking about Katherine, about getting her back."Elena gives a small jolt.

OK, now she's really worrying him.

"What is it Elena? What's up?"

"Nothing, it's just... I dreamed of her, you know. Well, not dreamed of her, dreamed I was her. Or maybe that Klaus thought I was her or..." she trails off.

"Last night? Your nightmare?" Damon speaks gently. She isn't saying anything for the moment, so he speaks again. "You scared me you know, when I heard you screaming. I thought..." He swallows. "I thought I'd failed you." He grimaces. "You never... I've never heard you wake up screaming like that before."

"No, because I haven't. This wasn't like my other nightmares." She shudders at the memory. "It was blood, and blackness, and Klaus, and... Stefan. Only he wasn't like Stefan." She looks down at her hands, clasped in her lap. "I called Stefan for help, but then, I realized it was a mistake, and then Klaus was there, and he called me Katerina, told me he knew I'd come. And I knew he wanted to kill me." She shakes her head. "No, no, that's not right. I knew he wasn't going to kill me. He was going to do much worse."

Unease swarms up Damon's spine. He frees one hand to flip open his phone, and starts to dial.

"What is it, Damon?" Elena is looking at him, but Damon ignores her to concentrate on the voice on the other end of the line.

"Hel-"

"Bonnie?"

"Well hi to you too." She sounds snarky, but not as snarky as he knows she would sound if she wasn't also worried.

"Bonnie, did Caroline tell you about what they found out? About the spell on the doppelganger?" He feels, rather than sees, Elena straighten in her seat.

"Well yeah, but they were talking about Katherine, right? Klaus thinks Elena is dead, there's no reason for him to try spelling her."

"No, he's not trying to. It's Katherine he wants, but... Is it possible that a spell's been cast that's not targeting Katherine in particular, but a doppelganger in general? Something that might affect both of them?"

"I'm not sure. The whole doppelganger deal, it's... highly unusual, I'd have to try and find out..."

"Can you shield her somehow? Block her from the spell?"

Bonnie sighs "Damon, it's not that easy. I don't know what the spell is, what it does, how it's been cast..." Damon can hear Jeremy in the background, wanting to know what's going on. Bonnie hushes him, gets back on the line.

"I can try a cloaking spell, which might help shield her from someone trying to locate her, that kind of thing. Won't stop a powerful witch who really wants to find her, but if they're only looking for Katherine, and they aren't expecting her to show, that might be enough."

"Do it."

"It would be easier if she were here." Bonnie grumbles.

"If they're pulling some kind of shit on her, they're not having any problems doing it from a distance. Deal with it." He knows he's being short with her, even for him, but he's sick of dealing with witchy crap, and hey, by definition that makes it Bonnie's kind of crap. "And find out what you can about how they might be able to target the doppelgangers."

He snaps the phone shut. Looks over at Elena. Makes a less than smooth transition from angry to reassuring. "Bonnie's dealing with it."

Elena doesn't answer. She's hugging herself with crossed arms, slightly turned away from his side of the car. He can't see her face, but he can tell she's not happy. Not that he blames her.

"It's a precaution, Elena. We don't know if it even means anything. It was probably just a dream."

Then Elena's voice speaks so quietly that, if it weren't for Damon's supernatural hearing, he might not be able to make out the words.

"It didn't feel like just a dream."


	5. The Devil You Know

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

* * *

><p>###<p>

They've been driving for miles since the call to Bonnie. Damon's gotten quieter and quieter, the hard lines of his face getting tighter and tighter as they've edged closer to their destination.

Elena has had nothing to do in the silence but worry. Not only does it now look like Klaus's henchmen might have put some kind of witchy ju-ju on her, but they are drawing closer and closer to the whereabouts of a psychotic vampire bitch who would like nothing more than to kill her and take both Salvatores away from her for good. It belatedly occurs to her that the only reason Katherine didn't kill Elena long ago was due to her value as a bargaining chip. Value that disappeared the moment the curse was broken.

"Is this really a good idea, Damon?"

"No, not really. But it is the least bad of a dozen sucky ones." His grim face belies his careless tone. Elena wants to say something else, to voice one of the hundred questions and concerns she has, but something about his steely expression and the way he is almost strangling the steering wheel is giving her pause.

Suddenly he tugs the wheel sideways, creating a fountain of gravel as the car comes to rest beside the highway. Elena wonders if he is having second thoughts. Imagining him turning the car around and bolting homeward causes a gut response of cowardly hope that Elena immediately tamps down on in shame. Wherever Stefan is, she's fairly sure he's not getting the option to go home and hide under the covers until it's all over.

Damon shrugs off his seatbelt, but makes no move to leave the car. He is staring straight ahead, an unreadable expression on his face. Though they are no longer moving, his knuckles are white on the wheel. Just as Elena is going to break the silence, he seems to come to a decision and turns his head to look at her. A blur and a microsecond later, and he is suddenly close. Too close, one hand against the inside passenger door and his body leaning menacingly over hers.

"I need you to listen to me Elena." His tone is flat. To Elena, it sounds like the voice of a stranger.

"When we get into town, I'm stowing you somewhere safe. And for the first time in your life you are going to _follow directions_ and _stay there_."

They both know she can't be compelled, but Damon has her fixed in a stare so intense, Elena wonders if he is trying anyway.

"You will _not_ leave. You will not go _anywhere_ until I have found Katherine. _By myself. "_

He moves even closer, until she can clearly make out the subtle variations of blue in his eyes and the outline of every black lash that surrounds them. She looks into his icy gaze, almost vibrating with the tension of leashed ferocity. His whole body hums with contained energy.

"If you_ do_ leave, I will hunt you down, lock you in a cellar until your vervain wears off, and compel you not to leave the house for eternity. And I will leave Stefan to rot. Also for eternity."

Even though she knows he's intentionally playing the role of bad guy, Elena can't help the way her chest unconsciously freezes, or the way her pulse kicks up. Her biological warning system knows a predator when it sees one, reminding her that just because he is trying to manipulate her into seeing him as a deadly demon, that doesn't mean it's not true. The intensity she feels pulsing from him is real, and she'd be fooling herself if she pretended that Damon couldn't funnel that into a killing spree if he was so inclined.

But it doesn't matter. She knows what he is doing, and she knows why. And this time she actually agrees with him, though she refuses to admit how much she is shaken (and yes, a little hurt) by his methods.

He is gone as suddenly as he came, seated back in the driver seat, though his body still palpitates with that strange tension, and when he speaks again, his voice still sounds like it could slice through diamonds.

"We clear?"

She puts on the mantel of false indifference she's become increasingly good at (she has learnt from the master, after all) and pretends she is unaffected by the fact that the devil was in her personal space a second ago.

"It's OK Damon. I know she wants me dead. Don't worry, I have zero desire to serve myself up to her on a platter." The haughtiness she can hear in her own voice almost makes Elena cringe, but honestly, who can blame her? She has just been terrorized by an expert. By someone who claims to be her _friend_ no less. She is entitled to be cranky.

He is surprised by her response, she can tell. And... relieved. Some of the tension noticeably leaves his body.

Elena is far from relieved.

"Are you sure you want to involve her in this?"

Damon shrugs. "She's already involved. Whether I choose to use her involvement or ignore it, Klaus is still going to get her. Eventually."

That's not really her point (her point is more about how unlikely it seems that involving Katherine in their plans is ever going to improve any situation), but Elena decides to go with this new course of conversation.

"So that doesn't bother you? She did save your life." Elena isn't sure how she feels about that. Or exactly why it makes her feel uneasy.

"She dropped off a bottle of bastard-dog-blood on her way to saving her own ass. Something she could only do, by the way, because I helped her escape. And let's not forget that twice already she's chosen my death over losing something else she wanted."

Elena didn't know that. Then again, Elena has come to realize there is a lot about Damon that she doesn't know. She opens her mouth to ask, but he cuts her off.

"Don't worry Elena, there is no love lost between Katherine and I. Not anymore. I was fooling myself to think there ever was."

Of course, if Damon wasn't so good at talking East while facing West, this all might be more convincing.

"But you did spend 150 years waiting for her, trying to find a way to get her out of the tomb." Like she could forget that old Damon, obsessed with rescuing Katherine, obsessed with everything Katherine.

"Fool's errand." He catches her look. "No, I mean, besides the fact that she wasn't actually _in_ the tomb. I thought we had... something." He looks at Elena, continues softly. "Now I know better."

He shrugs. "It wasn't real Elena."

"That's what Stefan says. That he was compelled. But not you. And you would know, once you were a vampire. It would have worn off. You would have known it straight away." Elena is not sure why she is pushing this. After all, Katherine is (was?) one of Damon's buttons. Her only excuse is that three minutes ago he was trying his best to push hers.

"Compulsion has nothing to do with it." Damon shakes his head, as if the whole sorry issue could be buzzed off like an annoying fly. "I know it wasn't real because she didn't love me."

"She said she did."

"She also said she didn't." Damon speaks shortly. "I believed her the first time."

Humph. Elena believed her the second time.

"But you believed in it for a century and a half before that. You would do anything to get her back, that's what you told me."

"And now..." she speaks more softly, "here you are again, looking for Katherine."

He'd said it himself – they'd had a dozen bad options to choose from. He'd picked the one that involved chasing Katherine.

Did he think she hadn't noticed that?

Elena is afraid to look at Damon, but she has to know. She expects the worst. Livid silence, an angry explosion, at least a snarky barb. She is shocked at the expression on his face.

He is smiling. A puppy dog smile the likes of which she never expected to see on Damon Salvatore's face. He gives her a sideways look and chuckles to himself.

Yeah, he is having a great time.

She doesn't get it.

"What?"

No answer.

She reaches across the center console, aims her fists at his chest in frustration. "What, Damon? What's so damn funny?"

He catches her wrists and looks down at her, still smiling widely.

"Elena Gilbert," he drawls, "I do believe you're jealous!"

* * *

><p>She pulls away from him, rolling her eyes.<p>

"Of course, that would be the only reason Damon Salvatore can imagine I would be concerned whether he has lingering feelings for the vampire he loved for over a century... It has nothing to do with the fact that we are about to try and use said vampire to save my boyfriend, or," she holds a finger up, "to do with the fact that said ex-girlfriend really seriously wants me dead and you in her bed."

"So why do you care?"

"What?" Elena is incredulous.

"No I mean, I get most of that, life and death, epic love. I mean just the last bit. What do you care if she wants me in her bed?"

"I didn't say that."

"Yes you did, my dear Elena."

He loves it when she gets flustered.

"If I did I just mean," she waves her hands about in a vague manner, "that she wants me out of the way. And when Katherine wants someone out of the way, that means real far out of everyone's way. Forever."

Damon smiles serenely. "OK, whatever you say."

His phone rings, interrupting his fun. _Ugh_, this better be important.

"Caroline?"

"Hi Damon, just calling in to, you know, update."

"Any particular reason you keep calling me, Caroline? Instead of, say, Elena?" He lowers his voice to an exaggerated stage whisper. "You're not worried she might get jealous?" He ignores the phone that's thrown at him. "Have you noticed that, Caroline?" And the empty soda can. "That Elena seems to be the jealous type?" He catches the CD. "_Hey_, watch it, not the Coltrane."

"Damon, what are you talking about? Whatever. The reason I'm calling you is so you know what's going on. You can worry about what you need to explain to Elena, alright? I just want to do this and get back to... Other things I have to do." Caroline is being vague. Must be Tuesday.

"Yeah yeah Blondie. So what's the report then? Second verse, same as the first?" He hears some noises in the background that give him a pretty good idea of the "other things" Caroline has to do. He raises his voice into the phone. "Hey Tyler, I can hear that, vamp hearing, remember? Wanna cut it out for five minutes? Sit, stay, whatever." He hears Caroline's mortified tones, and some grumbling, but the noises stop. "There's a good boy. Caroline, you were saying?"

"Um yeah, pretty much the same deal except..." she pauses.

Again, the eeriness of Caroline silence.

"Except..." Damon practically growls into the phone.

"Except not so many people to save. I'm worried he's giving up, Damon. And the more people he kills..."

"The worse the guilt and ergo the bloodlust are going to get. Yeah, I get it."

He throws his head back and massages his temples with his free hand.

"You know, Blondie, I actually wasn't expecting to hear from you again so soon. How... fresh were they?" Elena is looking a little pale in the passenger seat. He leans across and opens her door, but she shakes her head at him.

"A few hours, maybe?"

"I don't know how much more you're going to be able to help. Either way, get Bonnie to do a tracking spell on Stef, get an idea of where they are now. I don't think you two should get any closer for the moment."

"Oh sure, right. Except... Bonnie already tried that, it didn't work."

"What?"

"Jeremy had that idea already, thought we should keep an eye out on Klaus, thought it might make our job easier, but... Bonnie thinks they've got a similar spell on them to the one she has on Elena at the moment. You know, a cloaky thing. Since they've probably got a few witches, all in the spot they're trying to cloak... It's pretty strong, apparently." Caroline goes on in that unbearably chirpy voice that probably comes in real handy for cheerleading and pep rallies. "She's working on it though."

"Great. You and the mutt have fun." He consciously resists the temptation to tag the words "doggie" and "style" to the sentence. Because that would be childish.

Elena is on him before he even hangs up the phone.

"He's started killing, hasn't he?"

She doesn't need to hear his answer. He can tell from her face that she already knows.

"Damon, we have to get him out of there. Now."

"I know Elena." He sighs. "I know."


	6. Blood Brothers

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><p>###<p>

"This isn't good, Damon. You remember what happened after he hurt Amber last time. He wanted to die."

They're back on the road, but Elena seems so restless in the confines of the car that Damon has the unsettling impression she might open a door and leap from the moving vehicle any second.

"What if we're too late? What if he gives up before we get to him?"

She draws her knees up to hug them to her chest and looks at him imploringly.

Damon looks at the fragile-looking bundle in his passenger seat, all wide eyes and jittery limbs, and hopes to God she doesn't start to cry, or it's going to completely finish him off.

"We won't be, and he won't." He means it.

"But we're not even sure this is going to work." Elena shakes her head, flicking brown strands across her legs as she hugs her knees even closer. "We should go straight to Klaus."

And that right there is the problem with humanity. Damon sometimes forgets how a whiff of emotional unease has the power to make a previously sane, intelligent human being start making decisions like they've got a head full of pine nuts. He looks at Elena disbelievingly.

"Whoa, steady there Elena. A minute ago you were trying to talk me out of this because our plan is less than airtight, now you want to go in with no plan at all?"

"First of all, that is a bad idea. A very, very bad idea."

"Second of all, we... can't."

"What do you mean, we _can't_." Elena releases her legs and turns on him in one sudden movement, delicate fists clenching at her sides and dark eyes boring into him like it's somehow _his_ fault that Stefan is out there sullying his white-knight persona in a totally inscrutable location.

Oh wait. That's right. It is his fault.

"Elena, Bonnie can't locate them. She tried. She's blocked." Which reminds Damon, it's also Bonnie's fault. And Klaus's wretched witches' fault. And doubly-wretched Klaus's fault. See? There's plenty of blame here for everyone. And plenty of wretchedness. Not that pointing any of this out is going to improve the angry despair of the girl sitting two feet from him.

"Look, Bonnie is going to keep trying. In the meantime, we'll stick with the plan, and we'll make it work, OK?" He looks at her encouragingly.

Her expression clearly tells him it's not OK. Not with her. Not at all.

"Elena, I know you are worried about Stefan. I am too. But, the truth is, he's actually in less danger of dying now than he was before."

"And how do you figure that, Damon?"

Elena's not looking so fragile anymore. Now she's a tense arrangement of flashing eyes, angry lips and restless fists, and Damon's pretty sure the second he says the wrong thing, they're all going to be launched at him.

He wonders when it was that someone whisked away the angel from his passenger seat and replaced her with a wildcat.

He's angry with himself when he realizes he's letting it bother him. He knows he shouldn't, he's supposed to know better. His problem is he slips too damn easily into this false sense of togetherness, a cozy little illusion that they're a team, Damon and Elena versus The World. It tends to make him forget the speed with which the team borders can be redrawn, leaving him cold and alone on the wrong side of the line.

Generally he's noticed the realignment happens about the same time as baby bro hits the scene, reminding him the principal dynamic is, and will always be, Stefan and Elena versus Damon, and whatever alliances he might imagine he has with either of them can come at best a distant second.

It makes him wonder if Elena was right, and Stefan has already shuffled off the immortal coil in a fit of self-disgust. That would explain how his ghost slipped into the car while Damon wasn't looking.

More likely the specter was raised by Elena's conviction that Damon's judgment can't be trusted when it comes to saving her fair and noble Galahad.

He reflexively glances around the car, but doesn't see a glowing ball of pious energy anywhere.

"Elena, look at it this way... As long as Klaus believes he's succeeding in turning Stefan to the dark side, he'll let him live."

"I love my brother, but let's be honest. He's not the greatest liar in the world. I appreciate he hasn't had the practice that I have, but still... _terrible_ poker face. Trust me, his odds of survival are far greater if he's actually falling in with Klaus's plan. Because right now, Klaus is a far bigger threat to Stefan's life than Stefan could possibly be."

"I don't see how you can be so sure."

If she seems marginally less argumentative now, he knows it's not because he's reassured her any. Pointing out all the problems with option B was never actually going to make her feel any better about option A. But the truth might.

Not that he thinks she'll particularly like hearing the truth either, but he figures it's better than her worrying Stefan is somewhere out there poised to fall on the next piece of upturned pine furniture he meets.

"Elena, human blood... it's better than Prozac."

"Damon, he didn't seem all that _happy_ last time he was on it." Elena, Stefan's self-appointed champion, is yet to be convinced.

"But that wasn't actually the blood, Elena. That was the guilt, the torment over all the slaying of innocents. His... _conscience_." Damon says it like it's a dirty word.

"The blood itself? Comes with a rush you can't imagine. And it's more than just that. I can't describe what it's like for a vampire... the thrill of the hunt, the experience that comes with feeding on the human blood of a warm, pulsing victim you've just chased down... nothing you've ever felt in your human life even compares." Normally he would file this under "too much information" but he is trying to make her understand, and he's damn sure Stefan would never have explained it to her.

"Say what you want about blood lust, but it makes any other problems you might think you have pale into insignificance. And the moment of the kill itself? Trumps everything. If it doesn't take your pain away it at least buries it so deep you can barely tell it's there." He shrugs. "Until you come down."

He risks a glance at Elena, expecting a look of distaste, revulsion, maybe even fear, but instead she just looks quietly attentive. Like she's listening to something she needs to know. He could kill Stefan sometimes for the way he shields her from the reality of their situation, of their vampire nature. Stefan might not be brave enough to deal with it, but she sure is.

"Elena, you do have a point, OK? Stefan is going to have a lot of trouble dealing with what he's done, but that's going to be later. At the moment, he's got a whole different set of priorities and troubles."

"Because he's high on blood." She's watching him carefully. "And you think his... human concerns aren't going to have any impact until he comes down."

"Exactly." An A for the student. "And while Stefan's with Klaus there's not much danger of _that_."

"He's on such a blood bender right now he probably can't remember his own name."

Elena's eyes are still on him, though thank God they aren't burning him through anymore. She's got that tiny frown line and slight pout that tell him she's mulling something over pretty hard, but then, he figures trying to figure out how your white-hat boyfriend has turned into a rampaging mass murderer would give anyone a lot to process.

"Is that why you do it?"

Or she could be processing that.

And just like that, it's back to him and Elena alone in a car. Stefan's ghost must have left, and he finds he suddenly wants it back. Right now he needs the distance it puts between them.

"Is what why I do what, Elena?"

He is hedging. He knows it. He thinks she might know it too.

"Kill people, Damon. Is that why you kill people? Because it makes your human problems go away?"

He doesn't really want to lie to her, not when she is looking at him quite like this, all soulful and intent. Not when he knows she'll actually feel hurt, if he shuts her out. And every time he pushes her away, he knows she won't be quite so quick to come back the next time.

His biggest fear is, one day, she won't come back at all.

But his pain is private. What he does with it is no one's business. And what good would this truth do her anyway?

What good would it do either of them?

"I do it because I _like_ it, Elena." he grinds the words out.

"Right. Of course." Her voice is soft. She turns away from him.

He knew she would.

* * *

><p>Elena is confused.<p>

She finds she's actually reassured by Damon's words, that something in her is relieved by the thought that even if he keeps killing people, Stefan will still stay alive long enough to be rescued.

Isn't it wrong to feel that way? If there were any choice here, surely the right thing to do would be to allow Stefan to die, to preserve the innocent lives he might be yet to take. She finds she's glad the choice isn't hers to make, that she hasn't been given responsibility for it. Because she doesn't want the right thing. She wants Stefan to live, no matter what. She can't help it. She loves him.

She finds herself desperately wishing Stefan were here, that she could ask his opinion on these morally muddy waters. Because it's occurred to her that, right now, she's thinking exactly like Damon.

The poster boy for moral ambiguity hasn't spoken to her since she questioned the motivation for his murder sprees. He's ignoring her completely.

In fact, he's concentrating so hard on ignoring her, that she thinks he's forgotten to pay any attention to his driving.

Elena suddenly sits up straighter in her seat.

"Damon, wait... Slow down, I think you missed the turn."

"What turn?" But he flicks on the indicator and the car starts to slow.

"Back there. There was a right turn." Elena turns to point over her shoulder. "I think we should have gone that way."

"It's possible. I haven't driven this way in decades."

Right, another unexpected side-benefit of immortality. Must be hard to get lost when you've been everywhere before.

He glances at her. "What did the sign say?"

"I don't know if there was a sign. Maybe that's why you missed it?"

He cocks his head at her skeptically, then shakes it in surrender. "OK, Elena. Do you know where the map is?"

"I think you put it in the glovebox?" She rifles through the contents. "Yep. Got it."

Damon swings the car around and drives back to intersection. He looks at the map Elena hands him before turning to lean out the car window, squinting his eyes and scanning both directions of the road they're on.

"Sign's gone. Looks like a truck might have taken it out. It's the only turnoff for miles though." He looks back at the map again. "I think you might be right."

He looks over at her consideringly. "I didn't know you were paying so much attention to our navigation?"

Elena shrugs, and tries not to look too smug.

###

It's just a few miles to the next junction. It's a mess of criss-crossing roads, and Damon pauses when they reach it.

Elena waits for him to take off again.

But he doesn't.

She looks over at him. He's not looking at the road. He's looking at her.

"Ok Elena, which way?"

She reaches for the map, but Damon slaps his hand down on top of it.

"Uh-uh-uh" he wags a finger at her. He repeats his question, less playfully this time. "Which way?"

Elena groans. Damon and his games. Even on a life and death mission he can't manage to stay serious.

He's looking at her expectantly, eyebrows raised.

She finds she peevishly doesn't want to ruin her success rate by indulging him with this.

"No Damon." She crosses her arms.

"Fine. Then I'll just stay right here until you change your mind." He leans back and puts his hands behind his head, like he's got all the time in the world. Since he's immortal, she supposes he does.

"You're actually serious? I know you men get a bit sensitive about your navigational prowess, but this is no time to prove some macho point Damon. Stop messing around."

Damon shrugs.

"You know it's funny Elena, not five minutes ago you were oh-so intent to do anything in your power to rescue your beloved Stefan as soon as possible. You were even willing to throw yourself pointlessly into the path of a diabolical uber-vamp who would snap your neck before he even fully registers your presence. Now you'd rather sit here and waste precious Stefan-saving time than just pick a road?"

God, he is serious. And peeved. The combination tells Elena that if she doesn't play his childish game they could be here for hours.

"Damon, I seriously don't know where we're going, OK? You win."

"Pick one anyway."

Elena growls in frustration. "Fine." She points to a road that looks much like all the other roads stretching into the distance, and Damon finally hits the accelerator again. She tries to sneak out the map, since the last thing they need is to lose time driving all over the country in the wrong direction, but Damon snatches it back out of her hand.

After a while, houses begin to pepper the sides of the road. Soon, they pass an old style grocer nestled next to a tidy little train station.

"Yeah, this is the place." Damon frowns. She can feel his disquiet from the other side of the car.

"Damon, you don't seriously think?..."

"Think what? That it's kinda odd that you knew where we were going? With no sign, and a map you hadn't seen since I put it in the car _800 miles_ ago?"

"Unless you've got a photographic memory, or maybe some kind of supernatural orienteering skills you've been keeping on the down low, then yeah, Elena, I think we might have a problem here."

Elena suddenly feels cold. She puts her hands on the dash to keep herself steady.

"You think it's something to do with this... doppelganger spell."

Damon looks grim. "We don't have any idea why Katherine is here. I'm beginning to wonder if Katherine even knows."

"We should call Bonnie." She pulls out her phone with slightly shaking hands. Damon puts out a hand out to stop her.

"Wait, I just really want to get off these streets, then we can work out what we're going to do." They're stopped at another crossroads.

"What's your gut telling you now?"

Elena licks her lips nervously. "Right."

This time he goes left.


	7. The Law of Attraction

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**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

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><p>###<p>

Paper blue roses. There's a wall full of them, but Elena tries to focus on just one, thinking it might help her contain the nausea threatening to rise in her gut.

She's sitting with Damon in the floral-themed room of a small B&B - the first Damon saw when driving against her directions. She perches on the edge of a faded brocade armchair while he sits on the table adjacent, lean legs dangling, his mobile set to speaker and lying on the small segment of table space between them. He's explaining the events from the road to Bonnie, leaning forward slightly to better speak into the phone, one hand resting on Elena's closest shoulder in a deceptively casual gesture.

The truth is, he hasn't fully let her go once since parking the car around the back and materializing at her open passenger door. He practically manhandled her all the way from the lot to the room and into this chair. Elena thinks he suspects she'll take off into a doppelganger trap the moment his back is turned.

She hasn't forced him off yet. For one thing, though she'd never give his ego the satisfaction of admitting it out loud, she finds the contact reassuring - grounding even - in the current circumstances.

For another, she can't actually be sure he's wrong.

"We were off base, thinking they were trying a locator spell. It's more like... a summoning spell."

Bonnie's no-nonsense voice crackles over the speaker. "You summon spirits Damon, you can't summon people."

"The people equivalent then." His tone suggests impatience with this quibbling over mystic semantics. Elena notices that, despite the circumstances, Damon and Bonnie are managing to default to their standard bickering. She cuts in.

"Damon thinks it's somehow drawing me in, and that it might be doing the same thing to Katherine."

"And what's worse, I didn't even notice. I mean, it didn't make sense that I should know what I did, not really, but I didn't even realize anything was odd, Bonnie." She tries to contain the note of panic edging into her words. But she finds it profoundly disturbing to think of herself as an unknowing puppet. Bad enough that her actions weren't her own, but she hadn't even realized someone else was pulling her strings.

Damon gives the shoulder under his fingers a gentle squeeze, but when he speaks, his voice is all business. "Did you find anything out about how they might be doing this to the two of them? We need to know how to stop it."

Bonnie sighs over the phone. "Maybe. I'm still researching, but I have come across a possibility. If they had something that belonged to the original Petrova?... It would have to have been something she was wearing at the time she died, when the curse was created. Something that could store a lot of power…"

"Like a crystal, you mean."

Elena doesn't know if Damon is such an expert on crystals and their power because one featured so heavily in the tomb spell he spent over a century trying to break, or if being the ex-boyfriend of one witch and the ex-protector of a line of them has just clued him in on some things missing from her high school curriculum. She promises herself that when she gets home she's going to start spending less time on algebra and more on Bonnie's grimoire collection. Maybe she'll pick up something that gives her a clue next time someone tries to wave their magic wand all over her free will.

In the meantime, she is fervently thankful for Bonnie.

"A crystal or some other kind of stone is the most likely thing, yes. The original curse required an extremely powerful ritual to seal it, and if the first Petrova had something like that on her as her life forced passed and the ritual was completed, it would have absorbed a great deal of magical energy. Used correctly, it would make a powerful talisman."

"They'd also need something more elemental of hers to combine it with though, her hair, blood, something like that. If they had access to both those things, they could create a connection to the doppelganger ancestors and use it to channel an enchantment. If it's any consolation, the effect should be much weaker on Elena than it is on Katherine. The bond would fade the further away the descendant's blood is from that of the individual anchoring the spell."

Oddly enough, Elena does find it slightly mollifying to know that whatever she's getting, Katherine is getting it worse. She admits to suffering occasional feelings of bitterness about the way her doppelganger beats her out, comparatively speaking, in so many ways. That despite sharing an identical visage, Katherine is far older, stronger, and more worldly than she is. That she's had 500 years to work on her vampire tricks and charm. That she had the opportunity to slide her manipulative claws into the Salvatores 150 years before Elena even met them, ripping them both apart and leaving Elena's 17 year old human self to deal with the messy aftermath of her legacy.

She looks at the eldest Salvatore brother, arguably the messiest aftermath of the two. His dark head is bent as he focuses with complete intensity on the stream of information coming from a girl he can't stand, just so that he can keep Elena safe.

She supposes she hasn't got it all bad.

"The effect will also become stronger the closer to the talisman the doppelganger gets. If they're really doing what you're suggesting Damon, then it will be physically located at the spot they're both being drawn to. Elena shouldn't get any closer. And whatever she does, she shouldn't touch it. That will amplify the power and Klaus's witches will be able to tell the moment she does."

Elena makes a mental note not to touch anything she might feel like touching. Even when she might not actually be able to tell she feels like touching it. Great. Piece of cake.

Damon cuts to the chase. "Can we break it?"

"Not knowing the spell, you can't take the enchantment off. But if you destroy the object of power, then it should break the connection."

"Right. That's what we'll do."

Damon's got that look that Elena's seen before. Focused eyes, set jaw. Man on a mission. She senses this call is all but over. If she wants to say something else to Bonnie, she better do it now.

"Damon says you can't do a spell to locate Stefan, is that right?"

That does it. Damon finally frees her shoulder, leaning back to raise his hands in a "don't believe me then" gesture that Elena ignores. She swallows the momentary guilt she feels. She needs to be sure they're investigating all the options. Damon should understand that.

"I'm sorry, Elena. I tried. I can't find Stefan. We even tried finding Klaus with some drops of the blood Katherine gave Damon for his cure. But they're both well and truly untraceable."

"I'm sure it must be some kind of cloaking spell, like the one I'm using on you, but whatever it is, it's strong, and it must be some variation I haven't come across, so I haven't been able to find a way to break it. Jeremy and I are working on some ideas... we thought maybe instead of looking for where they are I could find a way to map the voids being created by whatever cloaking spell is in effect, but so far, it doesn't seem to be working. I don't really know why..." Elena can hear the frustration in Bonnie's voice.

Damon raises his eyebrows coolly at Elena in an "I told you so" expression, before directing his attention back to the phone.

"This doppelganger relic, could they use it to do anything else?"

"Damon, they could use it for a lot of things. It's just a conduit. But if you destroy it, then it will break the channel for anything they're doing to her."

Judging by the look on Damon's face, that's all he needs to hear.

* * *

><p>###<p>

"So what do we now?" Elena is looking at him, dark eyes serious, hands crossed in her lap, Miss Do-Gooder without a cause.

Damon has to admit it's an improvement on the way she looked when he first herded her in here. He'd wondered if she might actually pass out on him. Then again, that mightn't have been the worst thing in the world. Surely even Elena can't get herself into trouble while she's physically unconscious?

He hops off the table in one swift movement, so he can face her squarely when he says this. He wants to make sure there is no miscommunication here.

"_We_? No, no, _no_, Elena. What _I_ am going to do now, is find somewhere to put you, and then _I_ am going to find this doppelganger bait, and then _I_ am going to destroy it."

"We're not staying here then?"

He's going to surmise from that question that Elena missed the bit about him getting a room with one bed. Normally he'd get some great mileage out of this, but decides that, regretfully, now isn't really the time. Since not so long ago he would have been sure it's always the time, he's going to credit that as a tick under his personal growth column.

"_We_ aren't staying here Elena, _I_ am. You are staying somewhere else. Somewhere safer. Somewhere that requires an invitation."

"You're worried about Katherine." She's frowning.

She frowns a lot lately. It's something else he wishes he didn't feel responsible for.

"_Yes_. I'm worried about Katherine. _Of course_ I'm worried about Katherine. I need to find this witchy trinket, and I need to find her, but I can't run the risk that she finds me first and follows me back to you. Bitch that she is, she's also cunning, and resourceful, and dangerous. I don't want you anywhere near me while this goes down."

She looks at him, considering, fingers of one hand tapping the armrest of that ugly ugly armchair.

"Damon, you do realize if you destroy this... crystal... thing... whatever it is, she might be gone before you have a chance to get to her."

To be honest, while he'd hoped she wouldn't pick up on that, he'd figured she was bound to. And similarly, that she might take some issue with it. No doubt she would rather be led to her death like a mystically-haltered lamb to the slaughter than risk having Damon do a little extra Katherine-chasing legwork.

Of course, it's not like she'd be the first to play sacrificial lamb this week. Her and his brother are birds of a feather in that respect. Seriously, if by some miracle all three of them make it to Christmas, he is going to gift Stefan and Elena with matching His & Hers T-shirts with the slogan "I want to be a martyr, tell me where to sign" emblazoned across the chest.

For now, Damon just shakes his head at her. "Doesn't matter Elena, the risk is too great, we don't know what else Klaus and his witches might be doing to you through it. We have to deal with it first. We'll worry about the rest later."

"How are you even going to find it? I'm sure I could lead you to it fairly easily. If I was very careful not to-"

Oh, for Chrissakes.

_"No."_

He doesn't realize quite how forcefully it comes out until he hears it reflected in his own vampire hearing.

Elena is blinking at him.

After a moment, she collects herself. "Tell me this isn't where you are going to throw one of those undead tantrums again, where you vamp out and start threatening me with leaving my loved ones to die and stealing the soul of my first-born, because I have to say, last time-"

"No, Elena. No. Look I'm... sorry... about that, OK?" She _would_ have to bring that up. As if he didn't feel guilty enough about it already. He can still remember crouching over her, watching her put that brave face on, the slight human girl defiant against the monster - even as he could see her chest flutter like that of a dove trapped under a lion's paw. Reminding him of what a bastard he really is. It cost him, to do that to her, but he'd been convinced at the time that it was for the greater good. Fat lot of good it seems to have done him.

She's looking at him imperiously now, eyebrows raised over those eyes that manage to cut right through to his soul.

"God Elena..." He closes his eyes in frustration, wondering how he can explain this. Wondering if it's even going to make a difference.

"You just make me _crazy_ sometimes. You have this tendency to jump into things, with absolutely no regard for yourself," and here he seizes on an important idea, one he hopes might actually get through to her, "and no regard for anyone else, really, because what you seem to forget is, your actions, they affect everyone else, too." _They affect me. And if you die it will kill me. _

"I really don't know what to do with you. How to get through to you. But I _needed_ you to listen to me this time. It was important... I guess I was resorting to... the skill I'm best at. I thought that would be my best chance." He tries to tell her with his eyes, that he knows what he's done. That he gets it. "It was a mistake, OK?"

It hasn't worked.

Elena launches herself out of her chair, so that they're suddenly standing toe-to-toe. "Hang on a second there, Damon." Her face, beautiful in it's fierceness, is upturned towards his in clear accusation.

_"I_ make _you_ crazy? With my impulsive behavior, my lack of regard for the consequences on others? _You_ don't know what to do with _me_?" Elena grinds her finger into his chest, and although her human power is no match for his vampire strength it takes everything he has not to instinctively step back.

"I guess now you know how I feel. When I know that any second of any day, you might go off on one of your impulsive, reckless, psychotic vampire kicks that have the unfortunate tendency to tear everybody's lives apart. When all I really want is for you to be the man I know you can be, and I don't know..." She shuts her eyes, like she can better find the answer without the proof of his flawed vampire presence standing in front of her. "...I don't know how to make you believe it." She opens her eyes again. "To make you _want_ to be it."

"_I'm_ the one who's never sure if I'm going to get through to you. And the consequences if I don't?..." She shakes her head, staring into space, not wanting to put into words the hell they both know Damon is capable of wreaking.

"Except, you know what? I don't have the advantage of vampire super-powers to try and beat you into submission with. No, the sum total of tools at my disposal is to _ask nicely_."

"But that works, mostly, doesn't that count for anything?" It's hurting him, this conversation. And though he knows he deserves it, he also knows that he needs to keep it together now, for both their sakes. And since feeling the hurt... feeling anything... doesn't help him with that, he's choosing to deflect instead.

Or that's what he tells himself.

He keeps telling himself that, right up until the point where Elena averts her eyes from his, trying to hide the burgeoning evidence of unshed tears from his gaze.

Oh shit.

He gives into the temptation to run the back of his knuckles down one soft, brown cheek, and her eyes flick back to his.

"You make me want to be a lot of things Elena." God, but she does. He's been nothing but a flesh bag of wants, hopes and disappointments since he moved back to Mystic Falls and unexpectedly found her in it. He remembers taunting his brother, "_Does she make you feel human?_" Goddamn karma, paying him back in spades. Making him feel the impossible, want the impossible. _Crave _the impossible.

"I just can't." He drops his hand back to his side. Accepting of all the things he'll never be, and all the things he'll never have because of it.

Elena opens her mouth. She's about to say something, though he doubts it will do him any good to hear it.

But then she stops suddenly, looking past him as her brown eyes go impossibly wide.

Damon doesn't need the sensation of wind against his back or his vampire hearing to tell him the door has opened, that they are no longer alone. He doesn't need to turn around to know who it is. But he does it anyway, making sure to keep himself firmly between Elena and their new visitor.

A lithe figure leans her shapely hip against the doorjamb, red lips curved into a smile that means trouble.

And to think, Elena was worried they might never find the bitch.

"Hello Katherine."


	8. Kiss Me Katherine

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**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

* * *

><p>Katherine gracefully unfolds herself from the doorway and saunters over to stand in front of Damon. Midnight blue halter top, black leggings, and that face, just like Elena's, and yet, really, nothing like it at all.<p>

"Katherine, what are you doing here?"

She looks him over, reaching out a hand to run one manicured finger down his cheek. "You're looking well." Damon seizes her hand, halting its progress. She smirks. "You're welcome, by the way".

He flicks his wrist to cast her hand away from him. It's going to take more than one drive-by cure-drop to warm him up to Katherine again. "Hate to say it, but you're not looking so crash hot yourself sweetheart. Not sleeping well?" He sees a brief falter in her facade at that, a ripple that disappears so quickly he almost misses it.

"I asked you a question, Katherine."

"What? Why am I here?" She arcs her eyebrows.

"Oh seriously Damon, are you really going to play dumb? Are you telling me it's some kind of coincidence that you and my understudy have charged into town? You had no _clue_ I might be in the vicinity?" Katherine shifts her weight to one leg, tilting her head to the side as if she finds this level of idiotic pretense somehow curious.

"I mean," Damon circles a finger toward the carpet at their feet, "what are you doing _here_."

She exhales gustily and tosses her brown curls.

"You and that hot little car of yours happen to be items on my personal list of interest. There isn't a hotel in this town you could have walked into that doesn't have a staff member under my influence." Katherine sweeps past him, turning to seat herself on the bed as if she owns the room. She leans back on her hands and smoothly crosses one long leg across the other. "I like to stay up-to-date." Her voice loses its tone of amusement. "I don't like surprises."

"Guess this must have been a real fun trip for you then? Surprise!" Damon lifts his forearms in parody before crossing them firmly beneath his chest.

"So then, it would seem you have some idea of what's going on. What I should be asking is what are _you two_ doing here?" For the first time, Katherine acknowledges Elena's presence, encompassing her in a disdainful sweep of her head. She takes a moment to glance about the bed. The only bed. Figures Katherine would notice. "Honeymooning?"

He is worried for a moment, about how Elena might be taking this, but he needn't be. He can see her putting on her "let's be adults about this" face, which tells him she's about to do something stupid, like try to reason with an irrational narcissistic psychopath.

"Katherine, we can help each other–"

"I came here to use you." Damon cuts Elena off.

Katherine laughs, the delicate tinkling sound so at odds with her black heart that it makes Damon want to gag.

"Well well, nothing's changed, has it? So then," she leans back further, so that she is reclining on the bed, arms crossed behind her head on the pillows, black stiletto boots crossed at the ankles, "do tell. How is it exactly you were hoping to _use me_ Damon." She says the last in a sultry purr, laughing again at his stone-faced expression.

Two can play at this game. And he knows how to wipe that smug look off her face.

"You can't leave, can you Katherine?"

An ugly pout he's come to know all too well confirms it.

It figured. He knows Katherine, and she has the strongest self-preservation instinct of anyone he's ever met. If she hasn't gotten out of town yet, it's not for want of trying. The doppelganger enchantment must be too strong for her to escape it.

"You know," he's using a seductive tone of his own now, "I can fix that."

Her body stills, and her eyes narrow on Damon's face. "Tell me."

"How about you tell me first?" He seats himself on the bed beside her lethal-looking boots and leans towards her. He doesn't know if she notices the move has the effect of putting him back between Katherine and her younger doppelganger. He doesn't altogether care.

He speaks softly. "I'm looking for something... I'm thinking you might know where to find it."

She watches him from underneath her long, dark eyelashes, and speaks in an intentionally careless tone. "Something like an emerald necklace, covered in blood? That kind of something?"

Something in his face must give him away, because whatever she sees there makes her smile in satisfaction.

"It _clearly_ has something to do with this... unfortunate situation."

"_Tell me_ you didn't touch it?"

She sits up, giving him a look of disdain. "I'm not _stupid_ Damon. I've seen a lot of magic in my 500 or so years, enough to know when something hinky is going on. I didn't stay alive this long by springing every trap that's been baited for me."

"I seem to recall _we_ trapped you once." He captures one of the brown curls framing her face between two of his fingers, "It didn't seem so very hard." He tugs until it pulls straight, but it reminds him of Elena, and he lets it immediately spring back. "So what do you know about this emerald?"

Katherine shrugs, "What's in it for me?" But he can tell he has her attention.

"I've already told you what's in it for you, Katherine. Tell us what you know, give us what we need, and I can make this all go away." Which will, happily, have the added benefit of making her go away.

She eyes him for a long moment, cogs turning behind those scheming eyes. It's never good when Katherine's cogs are turning, so he drops the nice act to push the point. "This isn't a negotiation, Katherine." He hisses. "Are you going to tell me what you know? Or are we both going to walk out of here and leave you to deal with it on your own?"

"_Such_ a spoilsport Damon." She swings her calves under her legs and shifts on to her knees in a movement that puts her directly in front of him, her face inches from his. Kohl-rimmed eyes roam over his face, lingering as they settle on his lips. "You know, you _used_ to be more fun."

"That's funny, I thought you said I used to be a bore?"

"Only outside the bed my love, never in it." She lifts a hand to trace the edge of his dark collar. "_That_ was always fun, don't you agree?" Her eyes are bright, dancing with the promise of light play, dark secrets, and long-buried memories of skin on skin. There was a time when he would have loved nothing more than to sink with her into these crisp white sheets. Now he finds it hard to summon the energy to even pretend an interest.

"And now it seems you're the bore. What do you know, Katherine?"

Katherine rolls her eyes dramatically and pushes Damon away from her. "Fine."

"The emerald, it's Elijah's."

* * *

><p>"What?"<p>

Damon's brow is furrowed. Elena is confused too. Elijah may have betrayed them once, but she understood that, Klaus had held his family over him. But she didn't suspect he'd be behind this.

"Well, he's not the _original_ owner I assume - green's not really his color - but he had something stashed away around here that he was trying to get a hold of right before Klaus killed him. I'm guessing that was it."

"Elijah's dead?" Elena is surprised to find herself saddened by the news. She doesn't blame Elijah for what he did, not really. After losing so much of her own family in recent times, she can't pretend she would have acted any differently in the same situation. But she felt... that he would have been unhappy about the forced betrayal of honor, that he would have felt he owed them something for it. She had hoped that might give them a powerful ally on the inside. It seems that's another potential advantage that's been lost to them.

Katherine's eyes barely flicker to where Elena made her outburst.

"He was trying to compel me to get something for him, not long before that."

"But even if you weren't on vervain, you were already compelled to stay in Ric's apartment." Elena ignores Damon's eyes on her, though she can sense him willing her to stay out of the conversation. What? Is he really that worried about her safety, that he doesn't like her drawing attention to herself? Or is he just annoyed that she's interrupting their party-for-two? She has to admit Katherine can be... distracting, and is possibly the only person she's met who can match Damon's prodigious flirting abilities.

She's been feeling a little like a dowdy spinster, left to stand alone by the wall while the beautiful people dance.

"I was supposed to get it for him the second I was permitted to leave, bring it back to him, and tell no one. He didn't have a chance to get into the specifics though. Klaus came back and interrupted before he could finish his directions."

Katherine shrugs. "Originals tend to accumulate a lot of powerful possessions. All I knew was that Elijah wanted me to get something for him, and he didn't want Klaus to know about it. Sounded like the kind of thing that might come in handy."

"I knew Klaus was going to come after me again, and I needed any advantage I could get."

"So you came looking for it." Damon concludes.

"Yes, I came looking for it. It was supposed to be in the botanic gardens near the center of town. I really didn't think it would be so hard, checking out one little garden. But that place is enormous. Who knew there were so many _plants_ in the world?" Katherine's look of disgust suggests that she doesn't much care for ecological diversity.

"I spent all day searching, compelled half the people in this place, but I didn't find a damn thing. Then..." Katherine frowns, her red lips pressing into a tight line, "...suddenly, I couldn't help but find it. I'd actually decided I'd wasted too much time and needed to move the hell on, but then I just... had a feeling. I went back for one last look and almost stumbled into a circle of witches doing some kind of spell on it. An emerald pendant, coated in blood so old it was almost dust. Didn't seem like it could be a coincidence."

Well, at least Elena doesn't feel so stupid now. Of course Katherine woke up to the fact that someone was enchanting her, if she almost fell into the enchantment ritual.

"Then what did you do?" Damon asks her.

"I turned around and got the hell out of there. Which is when I discovered I can't leave this godforsaken town." She grits her teeth in frustration. "I can't get more than 15 miles out, I just... can't physically move past that."

"What else?"

"What _else_ Damon? Is being eternally stuck in this goddamn hellhole not enough for you?"

"That's not all that's happening to you though, is it?" he presses.

"Oh, you mean the nightmares." Her eyes narrow slightly and her mouth goes flat. "Oh yeah, they're a lot of fun."

"Since that night, Klaus comes after me in my dreams. He's usually human for a while. Likes to chat, you know..." Katherine lifts her shoulders delicately, as if she is talking about an acquaintance coming to drop by for a tete-a-tete and peach schnapps. But they all know better.

"Then, when he's no longer in a chatty mood, he turns into the biggest ugliest werewolf I've ever seen, and the chase begins. And then the tearing." A shutter lowers briefly over her eyes, and it's the closest Elena has ever come to feeling sorry for her.

"He rips me apart, pulls me limb from limb, until there's nothing left but a bloody pile of pain. And then he leaves me there, just long enough to recover, so that he can start it all over again."

Elena feels the blood drain from her face as she realizes how close she came to being the one Klaus came for in the night. She catches Damon looking at her in horror, probably wondering if she's been keeping the extent of her own dreams from him, but she shakes her head slightly, and his palpable relief tells her he understands the message.

Katherine notices the exchange of glances. "What? Oh, you too? Ahhh..." She looks at Damon. "Now I see why you're involved. Guess it's lucky for me that Elena got caught up in all this too. I didn't know Klaus knew you were alive, Elena."

It's Damon who speaks.

"He doesn't, and he's not going to. You're not going to tell him."

"Break this spell Damon, and I promise I'll be so far away from being able to tell him that you won't ever have to worry about it again."

"You're not that good Katherine. He's coming for you, we both know it. And even if I break this spell, it's only a matter of time before he catches up with you. All I'm asking, is that you make it good."

"Make what good, Damon?" She's looking at him like she's ready to make any number of things good for him, Elena notices. She doesn't know if she means it or not (it's Katherine, after all), but she's still making Elena feel uncomfortable about being in the room. She's got no idea how it's making Damon feel. He's not giving anything away. Then again, he so rarely does.

"The hunt, Katherine. Stretch it out, over every hill and dale, _et cetera, et cetera_... give him the run around, make him work for it. That's the deal. I guarantee when we break this spell, it's not going to take long for Klaus and his witches to work out what's happened. You need to be ready. You need to use that advantage to make it the hunt of his life."

"Hell, get away if you think you can, I don't care, just keep him busy. You're no good to me if you're a pushover."

"Oh..." Katherine's eyes light up with interest. "You're planning on trying to get Stefan out, aren't you?"

Say what you want about Katherine, she's not stupid.

"What if he doesn't want to come out? He made a deal, you know. Klaus isn't just going to let him renege."

Elena realizes Katherine's right. She hadn't really allowed herself to think that far ahead, she'd hardly believed they'd make it this far.

Damon shows no sign of being concerned though. Whether it's because he has a plan, or because he's just being Damon, she's not sure.

"That's all the more reason for you to help us Katherine. _When_ he catches you, we're going to be the only ones left on the planet with a reason to stop Klaus. We'll be your only hope. You _might_ want to try and get yourself on our good side for once."

Katherine stares at him, head cocked to the side, considering.

"Ok Damon, I'll agree to your deal, on one condition."

Elena watches his expression go guarded, waiting for the inevitable catch.

"And what would that be, Katherine?"

"This time, I want my kiss goodbye."

"What?" Damon sounds like he doesn't think he heard her right. Elena suspects, with his vampire hearing, that he heard her just fine.

In fact, judging by the way he's suddenly standing a step back from the bed, she's sure he did.

So is Katherine. "You heard me. Kiss me Damon, and I'll do it."

"What is it with you Katherine, and men who don't want you? To be frankly honest," he gives her that trademark Damon smirk, "I'd rather make out with a rattlesnake."

_What's the difference_, wonders Elena.

"Be that as it may, Damon dearest, it's what I'm asking for. It could be a long lonely time that I'm in Klaus's thrall. I'd like some memories to keep me warm over the next thousand years"

"What are you doing, Katherine? Why are you playing these games?" Damon sounds almost resigned.

She gets to her feet and circles him like she is the hunter and he is the prey, not stopping until she is standing directly between him and Elena. "Have you forgotten who you're talking to Damon? Playing games is what I _do_. My game playing ability is _exactly_," she touches a finger to his chest, "what you are relying on for me to do my part in your little plan."

Whatever is going on here, Elena doesn't like it. Damon clearly doesn't like it. And though he denies having any feelings left for Katherine, she's sure Katherine's put him through the wringer enough for ten lifetimes by now, and Elena wishes she would just leave him be already.

Not that Damon would ever willingly admit to being vulnerable to Katherine. It makes Elena feel even more defensive on his behalf.

Which is probably why she speaks up.

"I don't understand why you're doing this Katherine. You know this isn't going to get Damon back."

Katherine shrugs, though she's still looking at Damon.

"You're probably right. Still..."

She turns her head far enough to give Elena a brief enigmatic glance.

"It might get me Stefan back."

* * *

><p>Ah, so that's what this is about. Damon was beginning to wonder what her motivation was for today's sex-kitten act. Elena, bless her, just looks confused. Probably wondering what the hell Katherine is trying to get at.<p>

Still, he can't help but laugh.

"Sweetheart, you're barking up the wrong tree. Besides, _trust me_, there ain't nothing in this world that can get you my little brother back." God knows what makes her think it's even worth trying. Stefan might have gone to the dark-side and started murdering innocents in a blood-filled haze, but how's that saying go?... He'll be sober in the morning, but she'll be a bitch for the rest of eternity? Well, OK, he's paraphrasing, but the principle still holds.

"Well then, what's the problem Damon? I know you're not averse to making nice with the enemy. Isobel told me you two had quite the make out session as a prelude to you threatening to kill her. Why so squeamish now?"

She speaks matter-of-factly. "Tell you what, if it's such a big issue, just close your eyes and pretend it's somebody else."

"Actually, being you, you could keep your eyes open and do that, couldn't you?"

He resists the urge to slap her, since that would let her know she's getting to him. Besides, she's right that he isn't always the choosiest kisser on the planet. It's a tool, one he's used to good advantage in the past. So what if the thought of kissing the woman he used to think he loved, the woman who looks so much like the woman he knows he loves now, makes his gut clench in revolt.

Elena wants her prince, it's Damon's fault that he's gone, and so he supposes it is fitting that he's the one who'll be kissing the toad to get him back for her. Stefan is _so_ going to owe him for this one.

"In fact..." Katherine pauses, as if hit by a sudden thought, then smiles, wide and mischievous.

He's not going to like this. He knows he's not.

"Tell you what, I'll make this real easy for you." She looks at him brightly. "We'll just re-enact that kiss on Elena's porch. Because actually, that was a scorcher. And sweet, too, I remember–"

_Fucking bitch._

Damon cuts her off, kissing her so hard that if she were a human, he'd be bruising her. And still, it's not hard enough, not nearly enough to express all the anger, the pain, the blackness in his soul that he reserves for this meddling sociopathic whore.

How dare she bring up that kiss, that never should have been hers.

How dare she have stood on that porch at all, pretending to be something sweet, and pure, and nothing like the rotten, festering sore that she is.

This woman stole all traces of innocence and vulnerability from him 150 years ago, and the first time he felt safe enough with a human being to allow a sliver of it to grow again, to show again, she had to steal that too. He hates Katherine for a lot of things, but he thinks perhaps he hates her for that most of all.

So this kiss is nothing at all like that one on the porch. This is punishing where it was coaxing. Harsh where it was tender.

Hate where it was love.

But Katherine doesn't seem to care, threading her hands through his hair and pulling herself to him, purring in her throat as she meets his force with equal pressure, pressing her soft body into his unyielding one as if she can bend his mind to her will with the force of her body. He supposes she could, once upon a time. Though now he can barely remember why that might have been.

He pushes her away, and she lets him, standing nonchalantly to straighten her clothes and run a smoothing finger along the edge of what's left of her lipstick.

"Hope that was enough _goodbye_ for you." It was certainly enough for him. "You can't get to me anymore. Sorry Katherine."

Katherine looks over one bare shoulder to where Elena still stands, silent and grave. "What makes you think it's you I'm trying to get to, Damon?"

Damon's had about enough of this. She's played with him, she's played with Stefan, and now that she's run out of toys, she's trying for Elena. Little does she know she's wasting her time. He glares at her. She laughs.

He sneers at her in response. "You're certainly cheery for someone who is doomed to a future as wolf kibble."

She leans close to him again. "You'll thank me later," she whispers.

"I doubt it," he snaps. "You've had your fun, Katherine. Wasted everyone's time. No one cares. She doesn't care, I don't care, you're the only one here who gives a shit."

She shakes her head at him, causing brown waves to ripple down her slim back. "If you actually believe that, Damon Salvatore, then you are a fool."

She taps the flat of her palm against his cheek. "And you know what _I_ believe, Damon?"

"You're no fool."


	9. True Lies

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* * *

><p>Damon and Elena stand on yet another doorstep, waiting for yet another human to emerge, so that Damon can conduct yet another interrogation.<p>

At least, Damon is waiting for the human.

Elena is waiting for Damon to talk to her.

She's been waiting a while.

To be more specific, she's been waiting for about the same length of time as it's been since they both watched his undead ex-girlfriend sweep from his room like the cat that got the cream.

He's barely spoken to her since.

It's possible that he's looked at her even less.

Instead, with a fierce (and altogether inhuman) efficiency, he's been canvassing the neighborhood for a safehouse, pulling Elena along with him through the outskirts of town like an amphetamine-fueled door-to-door salesman. He's compelled so many people in such a brutely direct manner that she wouldn't be surprised to find reports of a localized amnesia epidemic in tomorrow's headlines.

Right now, he is staring at a door knocker as if he has decided to extend his compulsion spree to inanimate objects. It's a simple brass ring, more ornamental then functional, and seems entirely unworthy of that much attention.

Elena is fairly sure it's just another excuse not to look at her.

He lied when he said that Katherine didn't get to him. That she couldn't.

She could.

She did.

Elena wishes she could tell what he's thinking.

He gives up his examination to give the body of the door an impatient thump. If it wasn't solid oak, she's not sure it would have survived the blow.

"Damon, maybe we..."

But it seems his indelicate summons have been answered.

A man in plaid flannel has appeared, his broad shoulders almost filling the doorway, and Damon ignores Elena to lean over and look into his eyes. Elena watches them transform from tetchy belligerence to glassy obedience, and hears Damon's low, staccato tones as he drills the man with questions. She doesn't need to listen to the words - she knows this routine almost by heart now.

When the man in flannel finally turns to disappear back into the house, Elena thinks they might be done here. But this time, instead of moving on, Damon propels her inside after him.

"Come on."

So, the decision is made then, and apparently it doesn't require any input from her. No surprise there.

They've stopped at what looks to be a small farming household, run by a middle-aged couple and their strapping son. The wife looks the sort who'd make a great meatloaf from scratch, and the men of the house both look strong as bulls. No doubt it's a factor in Damon's choice, though personally Elena's not sure what difference it will make.

She's fairly certain a herd of bulls is no match for a vampire who makes it inside the door.

Damon orders her unceremoniously to a couch while he "takes care of details". She doesn't bother trying to argue, since she assumes this is something that will require more glassy eyes and blank stares, and is happy enough to skip witnessing the dehumanization process. Even after Damon's recent compulsion marathon, watching the removal of a human's free will still makes her uncomfortable. Not that it's something she ever intends to become comfortable with.

He is back by her side, though only for a moment. "They have a guest room you can use, this way."

He doesn't check to see if she's following him, and she is forced to scurry to keep up.

She gets a general impression of pale yellow walls and woodgrain surfaces, but to be honest, her attention isn't really on the room. Or the house. Or even the fact that she's been sidelined from the decision-making process, yet again.

Right now, it's on the the vampire who brought her here.

The one from whom she can sense discontent brewing, like a leashed thunderstorm just waiting for a chance to escape its confinement.

"They'll get you whatever you need. Otherwise they should leave you alone. More or less."

She is the only other person in the room, so she figures the words must be meant for her. Good, she was beginning to wonder if he'd even noticed that she made it in here.

She tries to read his expression, but it gives nothing away. His face is a pale, beautiful mask that could be mistaken for indifference if it weren't for the tension humming just under the surface.

He's shut her out. But he's fooling himself if he thinks she'll let him keep it that way.

"Damon, is something wrong?"

Stupid question, obviously. The better one is whether she can get him to talk to her about it.

He lets out a long, drawn out breath that's somewhere between a hiss and a sigh.

"Yes, Elena. Something is _very_ wrong. _No one_ in this town keeps scotch."

It doesn't really count as an answer.

Still, it's true that she hasn't seen him have a drink in days. She realizes she's not even sure of the last time he had a blood bag. She really should have been watching him more closely.

She should have made sure he was looking after himself, the way he's been looking after her.

She watches him now, standing just inside the doorway, holding himself together so tightly. A disaster waiting to happen, and the truth is, he knows it.

It's one more thing Elena knows he pretends not to care about.

She decides that if he's not going to talk to her about this then that's just too bad. He can listen instead.

"Damon... I'm sorry."

He half-raises an eyebrow, the Damon equivalent of polite disinterest.

"About Katherine. I'm sorry about what she did. She had no right."

He dismisses her words with a short shake of his head. "Don't worry about it, Elena. It's _Katherine_. I was expecting as much. Negotiating with her was always bound to be about as enjoyable as pulling bullets from my ass."

But he misunderstands.

"No, Damon, I'm not... I'm not actually talking about what happened today."

"You're not." He's looking at her now, but still not as if he actually has any interest in this conversation.

"No, I'm... not."

"So what are you talking about, Elena?" He says it with exaggerated patience.

_I'm talking about the 'all cathartic; feelings exposed' that you exposed to the wrong girl. _

_I'm talking about the memory you told me you couldn't forget, that isn't mine to remember._

_I'm talking about the night you kissed me, only you didn't._

"I'm talking about... what happened on Founder's Day."

The first time she tried to talk to him about this, he brushed her off.

After seeing him with Katherine today, she's not letting that happen again.

And while she might have missed some of the subtleties of Katherine's passionate demonstration from her view in the stands, she nonetheless got the gist of her message to Elena.

_"You see now what I stole, don't you?"_

Katherine took what she wanted that night. She took what she wanted today. She'll take what she wants again tomorrow. And the people she takes it from are just pawns in her game.

Damon was right. Katherine doesn't love him. Or his brother, for that matter. Whatever it is she feels for them, it's selfish, and it's greedy, and it has nothing at all to do with love.

And he should know. That he's been wronged. That there's somebody who cares about that, even if he is determined to prove he doesn't.

The vampire in question is currently treating her to a look of faint irritation. "I know you're _sorry_, Elena."

She's actually not entirely sure how she's supposed to interpret that.

"No, really Damon. She took something from you, and she shouldn't have, it was wrong. _She_ was wrong. It wasn't hers to take."

She sees Damon's shoulders slowly rise, then fall. For a moment his face looks incredibly weary.

"No, Elena, it wasn't. It was yours."

"Damon…"

"_Elena_. It was just a kiss. And you didn't want it anyway."

He gives a careless shrug and half-lift of his lips. There's really no reason the gesture should make her throat ache like it does.

Maybe it's just because she knows what a lie it is.

"Besides, when you think about it, if you had actually been there, nothing would have happened, would it? _Ergo_, there would be nothing to take. No body, no crime."

"That's not true, Damon, and you know it. She took something from you. Don't pretend like you don't care about any of this."

He narrows his eyes, piercing her with that clear blue gaze.

"Who's pretending not to care, Elena?"

She uncertainly moves to speak, but he halts her with a finger that stops just short of her lips.

He stares at it for a moment, before shifting his eyes to darken and fix on hers.

"Look, _Elena_." He dips her name in warning. "You _do not_ want me to talk to you about this right now."

Elena is getting the uneasy feeling that she was wrong about this. About the source of Damon's dangerous mood.

She'd guessed it was about what Katherine did.

Maybe it's actually about what Katherine said.

Which makes her fear this might not really be about Katherine at all.

* * *

><p>"You're angry with me." Elena says it as a soft statement, but there's a question in her eyes that tells him she's not quite sure.<p>

The right thing to do, of course, would be to let her _stay_ unsure.

"Why would I be angry with you, Elena?"

But he hears the tightness in his tone betray him, and he knows she won't be fooled.

He's not even sure he wants her to be. Which is a good indication of how messed up he is right now.

God, he knows better than to listen to Katherine. They all know better than to let her get to them. But it doesn't matter, somehow, she always does it anyway. Knows just what to say to get into those little fault lines in your soul you never even realized were there.

"You can't listen to her, Damon." Elena echoes his thoughts. Almost like she knows what's going on in his head.

Because she's always been able to read him. Better than anybody else.

Then again, there was a time he imagined he could read her too. Better than her young naive school friends, better than his insipid, idealistic younger brother. He never saw her as the best-friend "not as fun as she used to be" ex-cheerleader, or as the unimpeachable girlfriend needing protection from the truth (and Damon). He just saw _her_.

He always saw her.

He always will.

"You know she can't be trusted. That she lies."

Elena, with her ever-earnest face. Trying to make everything better. As always.

Little does she realize she's just pushing them both onto more fragile ground.

"Don't worry Elena, she's not lying about this. It's her own worthless hide that's on the line. It's the one way to _guarantee_ her cooperation." Damon intentionally misunderstands her. Elena realizes this, of course, but it's enough to make her hesitate.

Which buys him time while he tries desperately not to do something stupid.

Like tell the truth here.

See, he understands what the real problem is. The problem is Katherine's actually _not_ all lies. That's her gift, to slip in enough misplaced honesty to set the cat amongst the pigeons, to twist in just the right demi-truth at just the right spot for maximum damage. She's planted a seed that he is not man enough to dislodge.

Instead, despite his best attempts, the seed has taken an insidious hold, started to grow and... Dammit, he needs a drink, and a throbbing warm-blooded woman to lose himself in.

A blonde. Or maybe a red-head. A fair-skinned, freckle-faced beauty of short stature and generous proportions.

Except he can't. He has to hold it together long enough to act the hero. He is the most poorly-qualified man for the part he knows, but he's all Elena's got right now.

_No, don't think about her, it's not helping._

The problem is, it's so incredibly hard _not_ to think about her at the same time as he is trying to keep her alive. Especially when she persists in trying to _talk_ to him while he does so.

"Damon, she's trying to manipulate you."

_I know that._

"You can't let her."

_Too late._

Slim hands grip his shoulders, their warmth penetrating the thin fabric of his shirt.

_Please don't do that._

"You need to ignore her. Come on Damon, you've been doing so well."

Elena's looking into his eyes as if she is trying to compel him. It's something he hasn't experienced since Katherine.

"You're better than this. Better than her. You _know_ better than her."

"Don't let her waltz in, say a few words and make you doubt your own judgment."

It's a poor choice of words, on Elena's part.

Because it's a lie, too.

It's chipped away a little further, at the crack that Katherine started. And now Damon can feel the truth, the violent force of it, breaching the defenses he's held against it and pushing its way out of him.

"See, that's the problem Elena." The words erupt through the clenched teeth that weren't enough to hold them in.

Weren't enough to hold anything in, really.

"_Katherine_ has never made me doubt my judgment about this."

"You're the one who did that."

"If Katherine's done anything, she's just made me doubt my doubt."

There it is. The fear. He sees it, flickering deep within those solemn eyes. Finally, a sign of sense from Elena in this God-forsaken conversation.

No, Damon is not a puppy on a leash. Believe it or not, you can't always bring him to heel.

Even if he loves you.

And Damon is feeling decidedly off the leash right now.

In fact, he's slightly giddy with it.

He's vaguely aware that he's going to regret this later, but he's got so very many regrets already, what's one more on the heap?

"So tell me Elena, what are you _more_ afraid of?"

"Is it that I'm going to _explode_, or that I'm going to ask you if there's any truth to it?"

Her eyelids flutter once, and her hands drop from his shoulders. _Good._

She's staring at him now, eyes perfectly still. It's a look reminiscent of a doe-eyed deer caught in headlights. A gentle, kind, beautiful deer.

And here he is, true to form, about to run her over.

It occurs to him that maybe this is what Katherine wanted all along. To push him to screw it up again with Elena so badly that she imagines he'll be forced to go limping back to her. So that she can pay him back for tossing her out of his bed by reeling him in and rejecting him again herself.

Yeah, that sounds about right. After all, if there's one thing he can be relied on to do, it's to screw up.

"Damon, don't..." Elena's voice is barely a whisper. Huge brown eyes urge him not to do this. It's a look that would, in normal circumstances, stop him in his tracks.

But he's too far gone for that.

He leans in until he is inches from those dark eyes that refuse to look away from his. Or maybe they just can't.

"Don't _what_ Elena? Don't kiss you? Don't tell you I love you? Don't kill someone?" So many things he's _not_ supposed to do. "Or don't ask?"

No one ever tells him what the hell he's supposed to be doing instead.

"So what if I do ask for the truth?" He stands back and cocks his head, challenging. Himself or her, he's not really sure.

"Are you going to tell me again, how this doesn't mean anything? How_ I_ don't mean anything to you?" His words are soft, with the faintest thread of desperation.

But he still sees them hit her like they were launched from a mortar.

And that hurts him too, dammit.

He has a momentary desire to be Stefan right now, to drown his sorrows in an ocean of blood deep enough to fade the screams of his soul to whispers. He remembers there are three other humans in this house, all full of warm, liquid nirvana. As safe houses go, this one could rapidly become unsafe for them.

He shuts his eyes for a moment, concentrating on halting the red wave of bloodlust that's trying to rise up behind his vision.

Maybe when he opens them Elena won't be standing there, and they won't be having this conversation.

Maybe he will be back in 1864, still a human and not an unlovable vampire monster.

If he is really lucky, he won't have vampire blood in his system when he takes his father's bullet this time around.

"Look, Elena, I can't... I can't actually deal with you setting me straight about this again. Not right now."

There's only so much even a vampire can take. And he's not allowed to fall apart. Not yet.

Not tonight.

"So I'm just going to go and save your life again instead."

He's gone before she has a chance to breathe.

* * *

><p>Elena has never known a room to feel so empty as this one feels in this moment.<p>

Or maybe that's not the room at all.

"Damon?"

Shit.

She sprints down the hall, almost slipping on the polished floorboards as she makes it into the living room.

The family are all there. Safe. But Damon is nowhere to be seen.

It feels empty in here too.

She finds the front door already locked. She puts the weight of her body behind it, but it refuses to give as she rattles it in violent frustration.

Her futile movements are interrupted by a gentle but firm hand on her arm. It's the youngest member of the household, looking almost as big as his father up close.

"You have to let me out." She puts as much command into her voice as she can, though it sounds more desperate than anything.

She waits. But he's not doing anything. Why isn't he _doing_ anything?

"You understand right? I have to get out of here?"

He's supposed to be compelled to get whatever she needs.

Well, she _needs_ this.

"I can't let him go like this, he's bound to do something stupid, quite possibly suicidally stupid." And if he dies doing something stupid tonight she will _kill him_.

"I _need_ this door open. _Now_."

What's wrong with this overgrown kid? Did Damon unknowingly hit some compulsion fatigue and run out of juice half-way through the job? Why is he not _helping_?

He looks confused for a moment, but then it clears. "I'm sorry Miss Gilbert." He pats her arm, like she's seven and not seventeen.

"You're not allowed to leave."

A wave of bitterness threatens to engulf her. "Damon, you bastard."

He didn't need to be stronger than a vampire. She sees that now.

He just needed to be stronger than her.

There's a rumble and the scream of an engine as a car takes off outside. Something twists inside her at the sound.

She slides down the door in defeat, giving it a last savage pound as she falls.

She wonders if she'll ever stop falling.

"Hey, are you OK?"

The young man drops to his haunches to peer into her face, looking genuinely concerned.

Not particularly caring, she looks back. Registers an honest, open face. Disheveled blond hair.

Eyes the blue of a cold winter sky.

Elena bursts into tears.


	10. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

* * *

><p>Broken posts and wooden beams careen at drunken angles, and the faintest tang of wood dust floats on the night air.<p>

Damon pauses for a moment to pull a splinter from where it's managed to lodge in the rear of a thigh. He leans against a highly unstable post, considering his handiwork.

At this point, he is willing to concede that the emerald isn't actually in here.

If he's honest, it was fairly obvious it wasn't here to begin with. Attempting to tear apart the gazebo with his bare hands wasn't _really_ necessary. It just seemed like something that badly needed doing at the time.

As did his earlier drive-by appropriation of hard liquor, a bottle of which he now bends to retrieve from the wooden floor. He justifies the theft by reminding himself that it was an emergency, and it's hardly his fault the liquor store was shut at the time. Anyway, if there had been any staff in attendance he would have been far too tempted to make it a full-service visit.

And _sure_, some might argue that he should have waited until _after_ he took care of this little mission to start drinking, but that's just plain unrealistic. Besides, judging by the 3000 calls made to his phone before he switched the thing off, he doesn't think later is going to be such a good time either. At least for the moment he has the chance to imbibe in relative peace. Now, if he could just get his head to _shut the hell up_, everything would be perfect. Damon closes his eyes, steels his mind, and takes a generous swig from the bottle.

And another one.

And maybe just one more, because hey, it's not like he'd been doing such a bang-up job of this sober, anyway.

Which reminds him, he should really get his focus back on the job at hand.

_Damsel in distress. Evil were-vamp witchcraft. Dead woman's jewelry._ Right. The sooner he takes care of this, the sooner he is free to chase oblivion.

He looks again at the platform under his feet. This was the site of the spell-casting, he's sure of it. He can still see the faded chalk markings that are clear indicators of supernatural tampering.

So, the emerald _was_ here.

_Where the hell is it now?_

He hasn't sensed a single soul since he entered the vicinity. No vampires, no wolves, no witchy henchmen. Not even a groundskeeper. So it follows that either their presence isn't required for the doppelganger trap to achieve its purpose, or the trap (and the gem) is no longer here at all.

No, it _has_ to be here. There's no point in performing the ritual in a public place like this for any reason other than convenience.

Besides if it's not here, that would leave him with a half-bottle of whisky, some splinters in his ass and a whole lot of nothing.

Sighing, he surveys the grounds.

Katherine was right. There are _a lot_ of plants. There's also a lot of weaving paths, waterways and the occasional bridge, all strategically arranged through the sprawling greenery. Not far from the battered gazebo, a fountain surges into the night sky - water flows over basins borne on the wings of stone angels, into a shallow pool, then finally channels into a neighboring lake. The lake is large, deep, and fairly well-populated, judging by the frequency of pops and splashes that reach his ears.

All in all, it's the kind of painstaking landscaping that would have required a great deal of vision, patience, and probably a good case of OCD. Not to mention cash. Damon wonders which mayor was trying to put his name on the map by funding it.

He has to admit in daylight the whole thing is probably quite… picturesque, if you're into that kind of thing.

At night it just looks dark, and eerie, and impossibly lonely.

Which, let's face it, is more his scene anyway.

And yet...

Damon tenses. He senses with chagrin that he isn't quite so lonely anymore.

Or, at the very least, that he isn't quite so alone.

A familiar figure has entered the area, making him wonder if he could be slightly drunker than he thought. It would be typical of his traitorous mind to conjure up an apparition of the very person he's trying so hard to forget right now.

Except he realizes, as the figure comes closer, that it isn't actually Elena.

Well, well, well. If it isn't the wench whose fault it _really_ is that he's now driven to drowning his sorrows and vandalizing public facilities. If it wasn't for her, everyone would still be happily operating in their ignorant little bubbles, pretending they can all play happy families and that no one needs to get hurt here.

"Katherine_?_"

She really ought to have heard him, even at this distance. But her slim, bare-footed figure doesn't falter, moving with single-minded purpose along a graveled path. Moonlight glances off her ringlets as she sails through the gardens with the unearthly grace of a ghost.

She's making pretty good ground, actually.

Considering her eyes are closed.

_What the hell?_

Damon is on her in a burst of speed, tackling her with him to the ground. She's only under him for a second before she is suddenly on top of him, straddling his hips, one slim hand wrapping tightly around his throat.

Goddamn but he hates that she's stronger than him.

"Katherine, _wake up_." It comes out as a kind of a gurgle.

Yup. He_ really_ hates it.

Her eyes snap open, unseeing at first. He watches them sharpen on him, then blink in surprise. The grip on his throat relaxes.

Then it tightens again.

"_Katherine_," he growls in complaint. He's finding he has just enough air to talk coherently, and a fair idea that she's toying with him now.

After a moment, she shrugs in acquiescence, removing her hand but making no move at all to free his body. Her legs remain clamped tightly against him. Struggling at this point will only unnecessarily bruise his ego. Logically, Damon knows it's her extra few centuries of vampire existence to blame. But logic won't stop him from feeling embarrassingly emasculated by being whipped by a girl, half his size, in her negligee.

Katherine takes her eyes from his to glance around her surroundings in confusion. "Where am...? _Oh_."

Then Damon sees an expression he's pretty sure he's never seen on Katherine's face before.

He thinks it might be vulnerability.

"Yes Katherine, _'Oh'_. What the _hell_ are you doing here?" He's got a pretty good idea, actually, but has no intention of giving up this opportunity to taunt some other no-good vampire for their miscalculating screw up. It's so very refreshing when it's someone other than him.

"I don't... I must have fallen asleep," Katherine says distractedly.

Damon just raises his eyebrows at her.

"Oh, don't look at me like that." She sounds grumpy now, Damon is pleased to note. No reason he should be the only one.

"Look, I've been avoiding sleep for... obvious reasons. But it's been getting harder and harder. The last thing I remember is being _so very_ tired," she complains. Her face contorts with remembered weariness, causing unfamiliar lines on that eternally youthful face. "I must have finally dozed off." She looks around her again, brow furrowed. "But that doesn't really explain how I got here?"

She's looking to Damon for an answer, he realizes.

"Sleepwalking, I think. You probably should have stayed off the Ambien."

Katherine frowns at him, lost for a moment in her own silent contemplation. He tries to rise, but she shoves him back absentmindedly, as if finding his escape attempt an unwanted distraction from her own stream of thought.

He waits impatiently for her to say something.

"You know, this could be the third time you've saved my life." She doesn't sound altogether happy about it.

Yeah, well, Damon's not too thrilled either. "Don't worry honey, it's a habit I'm working _real_ hard on breaking."

She taunts him with a smirk, "You're all talk, Damon."

"Give me a stake and let me prove to you how untrue that is, Katherine."

She laughs, and it almost sounds genuine. Except, of course, Katherine doesn't really do genuine.

"You know," she says conversationally, planting her elbows on his chest and supporting her chin in her palms, "I'm beginning to think I picked the wrong brother."

Damon wearily wonders if she ever stops.

"Katherine, you picked the wrong _family_. When are you going to give it up and leave us all the hell alone?"

He also wonders how it was exactly he got here; his soul trapped in service to his current hopeless unrequited love, while his body is trapped under that of his last one. He's glad the curse is broken. If another Petrova doppelganger turns up looking for their pound of flesh, he's not sure what he'll have left to give them.

Katherine sits up, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows. "Well, someone's in a mood." She tilts her head questioningly "...and is that the scent of scotch I'm catching on your breath?"

Damon thinks longingly of the bottle no doubt leaking out on the grass as they speak. He dropped it in his haste to take Katherine down.

"_Yes_ Katherine. For the record, you now owe me a bottle of single malt."

She looks over his head. "Hmmm... _And_ I see someone's done a bit of a job on that pretty little rotunda that stands... _used _to stand... over there? I suppose that was you too, was it?"

Damon twists his lips. "It was a little dull," he says offhandedly, "I thought it could use some redecorating."

"Well, that's certainly some enthusiastic redecorating. What's the matter, Damon? Things not going so well at home?"

He ignores her. The last thing he wants is to give her the satisfaction of knowing her latest meddling attempt was successful.

"Oh, please," she rolls her eyes, "don't tell me that girl is _still_ in denial?"

"Katherine," he growls at her, "it doesn't_ matter_. Either way, I don't deserve her. Just like _you_ don't deserve _Stefan_."

She furrows her brow, blinking in apparent confusion. Clearly, this is a novel idea for her. He understands how she might have some trouble wrapping her self-centered little head around the concept.

He takes advantage of her brief lapse in concentration to roll her off him.

Damon stands up and brushes himself free of grass. Katherine is still semi-reclined on the ground, propped up on her elbows and looking uncharacteristically displaced.

"_Katherine_, you still with us?"

"Unfortunately," she mutters. She looks about at the leaf-littered ground, probably estimating her dry-cleaning bill.

"Suck it up princess. Since you're here, you want to maybe help out a little in your own salvation, tell me where you think this thing is now?"

She glares at him with displeasure, but gets to her feet regardless. He notices her wince as she does so. Which is odd, because he doubts he would have hurt her when he tackled her.

He narrows his eyes suspiciously "Katherine, is there–"

"I'm fine," she snaps. "Let's just get this over and done with."

Whatever. What does he care, anyway?

He watches as Katherine takes a deep breath, plants her bare feet slightly apart, and closes her eyes. She reaches out both hands into the air in front of her and tilts her head to the side, as if listening for signal at a frequency he's not capable of hearing.

She stands there for a minute, silent and motionless, a look of intense concentration on her face. Damon is just starting to wonder if he's going to have to snap her out of it again when she finally straightens her head and opens her eyes.

"That way." She squints slightly. "Where the... fountain... is, I think?"

"Alrighty then." Damon immediately heads back, past the gazebo and towards the angel fountain he saw earlier.

Katherine trails after him but he stops her as they approach. "Do I even need to tell you?"

She raises her hands in surrender. "This is all yours, Damon. I'm just gonna sit myself right over here and watch you try not to mess this up." She takes a seat on a nearby boulder, crossing one leg over the other and tapping one bare foot impatiently against the stone.

The fountain is quite impressive up close. The pool at its base is at least 15 feet wide, the angels are life-sized and the first basin starts its curve about 6 feet from the ground. "Try in between the angels, in the center, on the dais," Katherine calls out, ever eager to be the supervisor of other people's hard work.

Water cascades over the rim of the lowest basin, picking up the moonlight and forming a watery curtain around the angels in question. Sure, it's all very pretty. All that Damon can think from here is that it's also all very wet.

He sighs, taking off his jacket. No sense ruining good leather. "Here, make yourself useful, hang on to this." He tosses it back to Katherine, who immediately slips it on.

He glares warningly at her. "You better give that back, or I'll send Klaus after you myself. Just so that I can take it from your cold dead corpse."

Katherine shrugs in apparent unconcern.

Damon steps over the stone ledge that rims the pool, wading in until he can feel the spray hit his face. _Here goes nothing_. He bends to pass through the curtain of water.

There are the angels, standing ever frozen in the dark, their countenances calm and beatific and so very unlike anything he can imagine feeling in his own life. He figures there's a lesson in that. Eternal peace comes only to those who are made of stone. He laughs mirthlessly at his own bad fountain humor. Because it's so true, he really doesn't think it's funny at all.

He crouches to get a good view of the gap between them. He thinks he can see something wedged in between the wings of a female angel and the basin she helps to support. He slips his hand into the gap and wrenches out a brown leather pouch.

Inside the pouch is what he came here for.

"So?" It's Katherine. "Did you find it?" He makes his way back out, trudging through the water to take a better look in the moonlight. The emerald is large and surprisingly bright under the moon's pallor. Despite the slight opaqueness lent by the blood staining its surface and clinging to the the grooves in the setting, light bounces through the stone and off its facets, making it look like its own faint light source in the demi-darkness. It's the kind of gem that he's learnt from experience is almost as good as compulsion at making women forget your sins and obey your every whim.

And there's something.. _weaved_ into the pendant setting?

_Ugh._

"What is it?" Katherine's still sitting on her craggy perch, trying to peer around to get a line of sight to the necklace in his palm.

"Looks like dog hair." Damon shudders. He reflects that he is rapidly becoming a cat person. "I can guess who it belongs to. I think we know how Klaus is managing to channel himself to you two through your dreams. He must be using this to somehow connect himself to the doppelganger link." If he was revolted by the idea of the talisman before, he's doubly revolted now. There's something fundamentally abhorrent about the idea of Klaus mystically linking his DNA to Elena.

"So what now?"

"Now I destroy it." He spies a hefty rock that looks suitable for the purpose, and moves to check its weight in his hand.

"With that? No supernatural hocus pocus? A rock?" Katherine's eyebrows radiate her skepticism.

"Is that even going to work? Aren't gemstones too hard to break? Actually, aren't they supposed to be harder than anything else on the planet, something like that?" She frowns at him. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Damon?

Nope, not a goddamn clue. But that's never stopped him before.

"First of all, _Katherine_, that's diamonds, not emeralds."

"Second of all, that just makes them hard to cut, not necessarily hard to shatter."

"Third of all... Look Katherine, maybe you should have taken a break somewhere in the last century of terrorizing innocents to enroll in a little high school chemistry?"

Katherine shrugs, as if this tangent is boring her already. Given her unimpressive boredom threshold, he doubts a chem teacher would survive to the end of her first class.

He settles the cursed necklace on the flat edge of the pool, where it twinkles invitingly in the moonlight. He looks at it for a moment, steeling himself. Hoping he's not about to make everything worse. They're putting a lot of faith in the theorizing of the junior Bennett witch.

From the corner of his eye he notices Katherine, edging curiously closer.

"_Jesus_ Katherine, can you just stay-"

Too late. One moment he sees her eyes light up, the next she's a blur in front of him. He lunges for the pendant, but she is already there, clutching it tightly in her fist.

Damon doesn't let himself stop to think of all the kinds of bad this could mean. "Katherine, you give that to me. _Now_."

She looks at him without turning her head. He can see the whites of her eyes, telegraphing her fear. "I can't," she hisses through her teeth.

It doesn't look like she can move either. Her feet are fixed, her body is bent awkwardly, and the hand holding the pendant has barely moved from the ledge she seized it from.

Damon only pauses a second to consider what to do now.

He brings the rock down anyway.

Hard.

Katherine screams.

It rings in Damon's ears and makes the roots of his teeth hurt. He has to remind himself that he really doesn't care.

He finds himself suddenly in the midst of a tussle, brown hair and fangs in his face, as Katherine tries to wrestle the rock out of his hand. "Katherine. What-"

Any advantage he may have had was lost in the unexpectedness of the onslaught, and he is soon left empty-handed. He has a sudden (and very vivid) mental image of being bludgeoned to a pulp in bloody retribution.

But he's not her target.

Katherine has taken the rock in her uninjured left hand, and is using it to pummel the fractured emerald against the stone ledge with all her supernatural strength and speed. It's not long before the setting is an unrecognizable lump of metal and the ledge is cracked and glittering with emerald shards.

Satisfied, she stops. She finally surveys her damaged hand, straightening her fingers gingerly.

She glances around her consideringly.

So does Damon.

Everything seems still under the watery moonlight.

Crickets chirp. The fountain rushes on. Somewhere nearby, a fish darts close to the surface of the water.

Damon's never really been one for suspense.

"Well?" he demands, "how do you feel?"

Katherine is looking yearningly at the horizon when she answers.

"Like it's a really good time to leave."

And then he's alone again.

* * *

><p>There's no vampire here now to keep Elena's nightmares away.<p>

She's been sitting on the floor, her back against the bed. Staring at the dim red glow of a digital clock as the minutes tick over.

Which means that she knows, down to the exact minute, when the spell is finally broken. She can tell somehow that it _was_ there, but now it's gone, like the white noise you don't notice in the background, until it suddenly sputters and stops.

02:27

She feels the sudden stillness.

She knows that it's done.

She wonders if Damon will come back here now that it's over. If he'll even call. It's the middle of the night, and he didn't leave on good terms, and he maybe hates her right now.

But she still wonders.

She waits until 2:35 before pulling out her phone. She doesn't hit redial, instead carefully pressing the numbers she knows by heart. It's a completely illogical attempt to draw out the moment, that period of uncertain hope, as she wonders if _this_ time might be more successful than her previous calls tonight. It's silly, and it's irrational, and she knows this.

But it's 2:35 in the morning. She's tired. And alone. And if she's willing to admit it to herself, at least a little afraid. She has accepted that this is an unlikely time to achieve the pinnacle of her potential for sensible and reasonable action.

She sits, phone pressed to her ear, waiting for it to connect.

Straight to voicemail.

Sighing, she disconnects the line.

No, he won't come.

She crawls into the bed and curls up under the covers.

Because even if he does hate her, he's still done what he could to banish her nightmares tonight.

* * *

><p>Elena is groggily woken by ringing. It's still dark, and she feels like she's barely slept.<p>

Maybe Damon decided to call after all.

She lunges for the phone. Sees the caller ID.

Maybe not.

"Bonnie", she says breathlessly, "what's going on? Is everything alright?"

"Oh, Elena, thank God you're ok."

"Why wouldn't I be? Damon broke the spell, I feel fine."

"Bonnie, why are you calling me at..." she looks at the now-familiar blinking display, "Jesus Bonnie, it's like four o'clock in the morning."

"Sorry about that, we just had a thought, and we decided we needed to let you know..."

"We?" Oh, right. Jeremy is there. With Bonnie, in the middle of the night, having... thoughts. Elena tries to short-circuit her own thought-making process completely for a moment. As happy as she is for the both of them, she still thinks of Jeremy as her little brother.

"So what's so important?"

"We just... We were thinking about the spell, the one I was trying to use to find Klaus? And we realized why it wasn't working. Well, what we actually realized is that maybe it was working all along."

"Bonnie? Wait, which spell?"

"The one where I was trying to map the voids that would be created by a cloaking spell, so I'd be able to find the one that's cloaking Klaus. Remember, when I said I was trying to find it, but I couldn't? All I found was a blank spot I assumed was created by the spell I have on you."

"So what..." Elena is still having trouble getting her sleep-fuddled mind to make sense of what Bonnie is trying to tell her. "What is it you're saying, Bonnie?"

"I missed it, Elena. The hole that was hiding Klaus was there all along, but I didn't notice it because both of the cloaking spells are in the same area."

"Klaus is there, Elena. With you and Damon. He's been there a while."


	11. Inconvenient

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

**WARNING: For the especially squeamish: there is some blood & stuff in this chapter. Cos, you know, it happens. Especially in vampire stories ;)**

* * *

><p>Damon looks at the shattered remains of the doppelganger talisman. The scattered emerald shards, the mangled lump of metal, the canine hairs that are beginning to blow away in the wind. Should he leave it? Take it with him so Bonnie can perform some mystical purification voodoo on it? Burn it? Flames probably won't do much to the remnants of gem and metal, but he might get some satisfaction out of singeing the wolf hair.<p>

He settles for sweeping the bloody gem shards into the water and gathering up the remaining wolf hairs, folding them carefully into a dollar bill. If he's lucky, Bonnie can find a way to make Klaus feel the fire when he makes them burn.

Judging by Katherine's hasty exit, Elena should be free of the doppelganger enchantment. And Katherine was right, it is a _really_ good time to leave. Klaus knows, by now, that his rat trap was triggered (if not broken), and is bound to be on his way to collect his rat.

_Elena_.

She's not going to be too happy to see him. Not only did he recklessly violate the unspoken rules of their relationship, he threw her attempts at comfort in her face, practically yelled at her, and trapped her in a house full of hillbilly strangers. The last thing he remembers hearing before he hit the gas was her calling him a bastard. He's not game to see what she might have left on his voicemail.

No, she's not going to be happy to see him at all. But she's going to have to deal. He's going to get her through this alive. Whether their relationship makes it is secondary at this point. And, also, increasingly unlikely.

He sighs. He is in danger of becoming maudlin again.

With nostalgia he reflects how, once upon a time, people would leave him alone and in peace for long enough to sink himself into a nice, deep, self-destructive depression.

Not lately though. At least, not in this little patch of green, dark, hell.

And this time it seems he even has his own personal hellhound. Because, _really_, what else could go wrong?

"You again. I should have known." Damon inwardly recoils at the sound of that voice.

Such plum, civilized tones, really, to be emanating from such a batshit crazy vampire thug.

Bracing himself, he turns. Klaus is looking much worse than when Damon last saw him. Which is to say, he is looking sleek, and smug, with the kind of healthy glow that comes from throwing back the blood of a hundred humans in a matter of days. Damon infinitely preferred him pale, screaming and contorting in pain at Bonnie's hands.

"Klaus. You're looking dapper. Guess that werewolf thing is really working out for you."

Klaus eyes him over coolly. "You are proving to be quite the inconvenience."

Yes, Damon is finding this quite inconvenient himself.

"I really am sorry about that. I'll just be getting right out of your way then, shall I?" He mentally calculates the most likely route out of here, but Klaus is already in front of him, one hand splayed against his chest.

"Not so fast." Klaus takes an unhurried step towards him, bringing his cool eyes and fair lashes far closer than Damon is comfortable with. "Where is Katerina?"

"Who?" Damon deadpans.

The ground that should be beneath Damon's feet seems to have suddenly dropped away, and he finds himself dangling uselessly, his shirt collar fisted in Klaus's hands. "I would advise _against_ screwing with me."

Without letting Damon go, Klaus turns his head, slowly surveying the gardens with an impassive gaze. "She should be here."

He won't see her anywhere, of course. Katherine's probably in Mexico by now, drinking Margaritas. And Mexicans.

Klaus does, finally, notice the crumpled metal that is all that is left of his ruined talisman. His gaze snaps back to Damon and his grip twists tighter. "What is it you have done?"

"Oh, _that._"

"Look Klaus, it was old and kinda nasty-looking, and anyway, those blood stains were _never_ gonna come out."

Aqua eyes continue their regard in ominous silence.

"I'll buy you a new one?" Damon adds hopefully.

Klaus exhales forcefully in irritation. "_That_ was irreplaceable. And of great sentimental value." He looks away, as if in thought, "Though admittedly not to me."

Damon is still dangling but, surprisingly, not dead. Klaus is taking all of this much better than Damon expected. So far, Damon's stayed alive about two and a half minutes longer than he anticipated.

"Forgive me for saying so, Klaus, but... you don't actually seem all that upset?"

"I'm not worried." Klaus lowers Damon to the ground.

His lips curl into a wide, alligator smile.

Somehow, Damon doesn't find it reassuring.

"I _was_ using it to get Katerina_. But_... Now that you're here," Klaus heartily slaps his hands on Damon's shoulders, "_you_ are going to help me get her instead."

The hands turn to vices. It takes all of Damon's self-control not to wince at the grip. He expects to hear a bone snap any moment.

"You _will_ tell me where she is."

"Or you will die._ Slowly_."

* * *

><p>Damon is screwed.<p>

Klaus has continued the demolition job that Damon started. Latticework panels have been torn apart, creating a pile of makeshift stakes that he's been utilizing at leisure. Damon's hands and lower body are thoroughly staked to the ground, effectively pinning him in place, while his upper body rests against one of the brick columns that underpin the ill-fated gazebo. Loops of chain hold him upright against the brickwork, assumedly to provide a more accessible canvas for Klaus's ministrations (because, after all, Damon wouldn't want Klaus to be _uncomfortable_ while torturing him to death). He's not sure where Klaus got the chains from. Perhaps he brought them for Katherine.

Klaus has also brought a knife. It is very long, very sharp, and is currently becoming very well acquainted with Damon's anatomy.

Damon has considered (and immediately discarded) the idea of telling Klaus the truth. If he tells Klaus he has no clue where Katherine is now, and if Klaus believes him, two things will happen. One, Damon will be dead. Two, Klaus will tear this town apart looking for Katherine. And when he does, he will find Elena, trapped in a cage of Damon's making.

He needs to stall.

So far, Klaus has seemed content with the slicing and staking, but he'll grow bored eventually. And Damon knows what will happen then.

Maybe if he can get the egotistical original talking, it will buy him enough time to find a way out of this mess.

"So..." he rasps, "This necklace. You said it had sentimental value to someone..."

"...I take it that was Elijah?"

Klaus looks up from where he is carving Damon's chest like a Thanksgiving roast.

He seems somewhat bemused to find his turkey talking back to him.

"How did you find it, anyway?" Damon is honestly a little curious, though under normal circumstances, that wouldn't have been motivation enough to force his burning lungs to move.

"Knew about that, did you? Katerina, I suppose?"

Damon shrugs, regretting the move as it as sends fresh pains shooting through his chest and arms.

"I'm surprised she managed to get you involved in this. Still, those Petrovas, they do seem to have a way of entangling men into their affairs, no matter how ill-fated." Klaus pauses, wiping the knife blade on a strip of cloth that used to be part of Damon's shirt. "Tatiana was the same." His eyes take on the far away glaze of someone lost in past memories. "Stunning woman. When we met her she was a little older than Katerina."

He grabs a (rapidly depleting) bottle of vervain, pouring a generous measure along the blade in a smooth flowing movement. "You know, it's a real shame your little human girl had to die, she was going to be quite the beauty in a few years."

Damon bites back the retort that would give the game away. _She's beautiful now. _

_Not that you would understand that._

Klaus bends back to his task.

Damon notices something strange is happening to the sky. The pale night keeps fading in and out, and he can't seem to make the stars stop moving. "So Tatiana was the..." his breath hitches, and he tries again. "...the original doppelganger. The pendant was hers?"

"Yes. She enchanted us all, of course. But it was Elijah who really caught her attention. We were _all_ jealous, even after we discovered the truth."

Klaus surveys his work, and, as if finding the symmetry wanting, moves to concentrate on the opposite side of Damon's torso.

It feels fairly even from Damon's perspective. As far as he can tell, he's in excruciating pain pretty much everywhere.

Still, he's finding the more Klaus talks, the less he cuts.

"And what. Truth. Was that?"

"Her heart wasn't free for the giving. She was betrothed to someone else." Klaus frowns. Damon isn't sure if it's displeasure at remembered events, or dissatisfaction with the results of his macabre artwork.

"He wasn't a witch, himself. But his sister was. And his mother. And his mother's mother... You do get the idea..."

Damon does. Families of judgmental, high-handed witches. _Those_ he happens to be familiar with. "That's why she was chosen. As the sacrifice."

"Yes. It was punishment. For both of them."

"I knew where the emerald would be hidden, as soon as I overheard Elijah tell Katerina to come here and get it for him, sentimental fool."

"It was their secret meeting place, you see. The old fountain in _our_ extensive gardens." He chuckles dryly. "Except one can never _really_ keep affairs of the heart secret, can one? Not even from oneself. And _certainly_ not from everyone else." He looks at Damon as if he finds this terribly amusing.

Damon doesn't see what's so funny.

But then, a growing lack of distinction between your insides and your outsides can do that to your sense of humor.

"It was her undoing, in the end. She went there to meet him, one last time."

"But it was a trap. They were all there, lying in wait for her."

Klaus examines the blade in front of him, twisting it to watch the scarlet wetness ooze down the blade.

"Her blood ran freely that night, right over that pendant she wore until the emerald turned ruby red."

"And Elijah did cry. Genuine tears." Klaus gives a short bark of laughter. "First and last time I've ever seen it. He must have taken her necklace afterward, must have been keeping it this whole time. I bet he didn't even realize its true potential. I've been through so many witches and warlocks over the centuries, trying to find a way to break the curse, to find the doppelganger, I discovered exactly what it could mean."

"But by the time I tried to find it, it was lost. And when he turned up again, I asked him if he knew whatever happened to it. He denied everything, of course, but I could tell he was unsettled. And then the _second_ he believed he was alone, he asked Katerina to retrieve something for him. From these very gardens. So predictable, that brother of mine."

He puts down the knife and bends to pick up a stake from the pile, snapping a piece of wood from the end to improve the point.

"When I... lost... Katerina again, I sent my men after it. I thought it was poetic, to lure the last Petrova to her doomed fate, just like Tatiana."

"So what took you so long to get here?" Damon determinedly ignores the wooden tip waving in Klaus's hand.

He snorts "I've spent too much time waiting for Katerina already. I don't do patience, not anymore. And there's not really much here to hold one's attention, is there?" Klaus looks around in distaste. He shrugs, "I took the scenic route." Damon assumes it's not the lack of scenery Klaus was concerned with so much as the lack of human victims in this small-town locale.

"And one of my warlocks had the ingenious idea of linking me to her. They've been able to use me as a connection to access her dreams at night. It's enabled me to draw out the fun while I waited for her to turn up."

"You know, I'd been rather afraid, with my new abilities, that the real hunt was going to be over all too soon. It's been a real boon. I have _very_ much enjoyed our nightly jaunts." He grins in remembered pleasure. Damon's blood boils, recalling how at least one of those jaunts involved Elena.

Klaus tosses his stake from hand to hand. After some consideration he plunges it into a shoulder. Damon can't help the groan that escapes him. Soon, Klaus is going to get a lung, and keeping him talking is going to become a hell of a lot harder.

Damon feels a new pang, unrelated to his physical pain, as he realizes he is running out of time.

"Still," Klaus says, almost absently, picking up another piece of wood and examining its tip, "I gave Katerina plenty of time, I shouldn't have had to wait at all. She should have been here days ago."

"She was." Damon says shortly. "She was here before you even sent your underlings to do your dirty work. She's smarter. Than you. Think." He is forced to pause as he is overtaken by a coughing fit. "And now she's gone."

He knows from personal experience how difficult it is to dissuade a man from an obsession, but he's run out of options. He has to try. "You won't catch her, you know. You should just give up."

"It's been five. Hundred. Years. Move on already."

Dammit. He'd be so much more convincing if he wasn't such a wheezing, bleeding, pathetic mess right now.

He can't even see the stars anymore.

Klaus bends close to his ear, almost nuzzling his cheek. "Tell me where she is."

Damon bites back a strangled yelp. There goes the other shoulder.

"You could try. Australia. She said... " He's coughing up blood now, but it hardly matters. He's bled out so much, there won't be anything left to cough soon. "She said she always wanted to see a koala."

Klaus regards him dispassionately, lips twisting slightly, like he's considering how best to rearrange some poorly placed furniture.

Damon has a sinking feeling as Klaus moves, ignoring his existing pile of wood, to examine one of the long beams that hold up the thatched roof of the gazebo behind him.

"I really don't think you should do that, it looks like it. Might. Be structural."

He hears the tearing of wood from wood as the beam is freed from its mooring.

There's a crunching snap as Klaus breaks its length. Damon feels the sound reverberate through to his toes.

He has a feeling he knows where this stake is going.

Because he knows that smile.

He's felt it on his own face, as he's gone in for the kill.

_I'm sorry Elena_.


	12. Unexpected Assist

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

* * *

><p>Damon waits, teeth clenched, bracing himself for the killing blow.<p>

It never comes.

Instead Klaus pauses, nostrils flared, as if he is sniffing the wind.

And then Damon senses it too.

"Katerina."

And there she is, standing with haughty arrogance on a slope of the garden grounds.

The tremble in her chin is so faint, you could easily miss it completely.

"Klaus. I heard you wanted to play with me?"

Klaus's lips stretch into a long, slow smile. "Well, this is a pleasant surprise, Katerina. I didn't expect to see you back so soon?"

Exchange _so soo_n for _ever_, and neither did Damon.

Katherine gives a small lift of one shoulder. "There was something I needed to return." She removes Damon's jacket from where it's slung across the other shoulder, tossing it in his direction without moving her eyes from Klaus.

"Besides, I have _such_ fun planned for us." She pushes her jaw forward defiantly, perfectly steady now. "It would be a shame for that to go to waste."

Don't get him wrong, he still hates the bitch. But for just one moment, Damon doesn't feel quite so bad, about being the kind of lovestruck fool to have fallen, for a girl like this, once upon a time.

And it looks a lot like Klaus is falling for her now.

If you could call the way a rabid dog feels about a piece of rotting rabbit carcass, love.

A manic glow fills his eyes, throbbing faintly with lupine amber, and if there were a little more St Bernard in his bloodline, Damon's sure he'd see the salivation from here.

Katherine knows how to play them, he'll give her that.

After all, no one understands what makes prey irresistible better than one who hunts it.

And Katherine was always quite the hunter.

She turns, giving Klaus an almost coquettish look over her shoulder, before glancing, just once, to meet Damon's eyes. "Don't you forget our deal."

And then, hippity-hop, the hare is gone.

Which begs the question. Why is the hound still here, sniffing the air and looking hungrily after her?

"Don't want to tell you how to do your job here Klaus but... You don't think maybe you should be going after her at this point?"

"I do appreciate your concern," replies Klaus dryly, "but don't you worry, she won't get far."

And that's when Damon realizes, Klaus _wants_ Katherine to have a head start. He's been looking forward to this chase for some time. He's obviously still concerned his sport will end too soon.

Well, if Damon knows Katherine, Klaus might have more of a chase than he bargained for.

He sees, with trepidation, that Klaus is looking again at the jagged piece of beam still held in his hand. _Damn_. He'd hoped Klaus might have forgotten about that.

Klaus hoists it above a shoulder, as if to test its weight.

Apparently not, then.

With apparent nonchalance, he drives the beam through Damon and deep into the ground. Pain explodes through Damon's gut as his vision flashes to white.

Klaus crouches to Damon's eye level, one hand threateningly grasping the length of wood above Damon's stomach.

"So tell me... What is this _deal_ Katerina spoke of?"

Damon tries to take a breath, and is forced to spit out a mouthful of blood.

"The deal," he hisses, "is that after you catch her..." He glares defiantly into Klaus's eyes, ignoring the blood that still trickles down his chin. "I kill you."

Klaus looks at him in faint disbelief. Then amusement. He chuckles.

"You know, I do believe I'm beginning to like you."

"If Katherine proves disappointing, I think there is more fun to be had with you yet. Perhaps I could even bring your brother along to help. He's not the same doting sibling who came begging for your life, you know. You might enjoy seeing the contrast." His eyes glance away in thought. "Well, no, you probably wouldn't _enjoy_ it... But _I_ would."

"Don't go anywhere, will you?"

It seems a somewhat unnecessary direction, what with the staking and the chaining.

"You're leaving me here?"

If he could just get Klaus to move him, maybe take him to where Stefan is... Or take him anywhere, really, that's out of this wood and steel wardrobe.

This is making him long for the days of being thrown in cold, dark basements to dessicate.

"I suppose you're right, I shouldn't just leave you lying around for anyone to find." Klaus swoops in a graceful movement and is suddenly standing again, a familiar crested ring in hand. "You do have a pesky habit of getting in the way. What if I get caught up, and don't have time to deal with you _properly_?"

Damon watches his ring go flying into the night. He hears the plop as it drops into the water, and wonders, resignedly, if the fish are biting today.

"What I _can_ promise you, is a very _proper_, very _personal_ death. If the sunrise doesn't get you first."

"I know which one I'd be hoping for, if I were you."

* * *

><p>Elena curses the stick shift of the SUV while she tries to follow the directions on the map she stole. She feels like she is trying to maneuver a tank. Thank God the roads are empty this time of night.<p>

This would have been so much easier if she'd tried following Damon _before_ he broke the doppelganger spell. Still, in the end it was easy enough to pretend an interest in the town's heritage, to get her townproud babysitters to show her the location of the local landmarks. She wasn't sure how far she could push the compulsion, so she simply smuggled the keys from where she saw them hanging on a hook in the kitchen.

She makes a mental note to send a bank check for the glazier later. It's lucky that Damon was delirious during her last breakout from the sheriff's offices, otherwise he might have stashed her somewhere with bars on the windows.

The gardens are closed right now, of course. They don't officially open until sunrise. But the chain hooked between the logs flanking the entry is more of a suggestion than any real deterrent and is quickly dealt with.

She pauses, engine idling, to think about this for a moment. This isn't really a safe place to be, even with the spell broken. And she doesn't know for sure, that Damon is even here. What she does know is that he wasn't at the B&B where Katherine first found them, and that his phone is still switched off.

Then again, he managed to break the spell fine. For all she knows he is somewhere at an afterparty of his own creation, drunk in a bar, hitting on women twice his human age and a quarter of his vampire one.

The _sensible_ thing to do would be to wait, somewhere far away from here, until he calls her, angry at finding her gone from where he left her but (hopefully) relieved that she is somewhere safe and well. And not do something stupid like trespassing alone on unmanned property in the early hours of the morning when there's an all-powerful hybrid on the loose.

Yes, that would definitely be the sensible thing to do.

Elena shifts up a gear and drives straight in.

A heavy dread blooms in her chest when she spots a familiar blue car in the parking lot. She ignores the remaining parking spaces to mount the gutter and take the SUV cross-country.

The light is poor, but when she sees a splintered ruin in the middle of a pristine garden, she knows she must be in the right place.

Then she realizes what she thought was part of the wreckage is actually the still form of a vampire she...

_Oh no._

Elena doesn't wait for the SUV to finish rolling to a stop, she jumps out of the car and starts to run.

* * *

><p>Someone is screaming at him.<p>

Wait, he knows that voice.

He was just dreaming about that voice.

"_Elena?_"

He's not sure if she heard him. Actually, he doesn't think he even said it out loud. He thought it pretty hard though, which seems almost the same thing.

She's still yelling at him.

Why is she always yelling at him?

He should let her know that he's here.

He's not even sure what that means, exactly, but it seems important, so he forces his eyelids apart for a moment.

"Damon, what have you done?"

_Of course_. He gets skewered, sliced and diced, and this is apparently all _his_ fault. At least he knows this is the real Elena. Dream Elena was... Well, never mind about dream Elena. This is the one he really wants anyway.

"Damon?"

"It's me," he says. Because somehow, she sounds unsure.

He opens his eyes, for longer this time, and sees what he couldn't before.

She's crouching close to him, cheeks eerily pale and dark eyes frighteningly large. He can see himself reflected in them, and even he flinches at the mess that he sees.

"Elena-"

"Shhh, Damon, shhh..."

And if his wounds don't break him, he thinks the tenderness in those eyes might.

He shuts his own before it does.

* * *

><p>When he next comes to, someone is twisting tendons and taking to his insides with a carving fork.<p>

Oh. It's Elena, she's pulling out stakes - he can see a growing pile of red-tipped wood, like a bundle of oversized matchsticks beside her.

After a while, the prodding stops. He sighs in relief as his pains settle to a steady background scream.

"Damon? I can't get it out. I'm not strong enough."

He knows what she's talking about. She's talking about that tree. The one that's taken root through his stomach. As far as he can tell, it's been growing there for decades now.

_That's ok. Can't feel that one._

And he can't. It's numb. So is the area around it.

And it seems to be growing.

Maybe, if he wasn't chained, vervained and almost drained of blood, he could pull it out himself. But he's already fighting to stay conscious, and when he tests the chains by pulling against them, the numbness spreading from his gut threatens to pull him under completely.

"I'll get help. Caroline's only hours away. Or someone from the town with tools. I'll bring them here, and you can compel-"

"Elena, no." He couldn't compel a goldfish right now, but that isn't really the point. "There's no time."

"Why? What do you mean, Damon, you'll be OK. It hasn't got your heart, we just need to-"

"Klaus is coming back, Elena."

"And even if he wasn't, the sun-"

"The sun?" She seizes his unadorned left hand, clasping it between both her own. "Where's your ring, Damon?" She says it almost accusingly. Like he might have somehow lost the thing standing between him and a fiery sunrise barbecue _on purpose_, or through some act of careless negligence.

He manages to flick his eyes once towards the lake, before he has to close them again.

"The water? Damon, is that where it is?"

He nods. Or, he thinks he nods. Maybe...

He doesn't remember losing consciousness. But Elena was dry a second ago, and now she's a sopping wet mess.

And the pain is getting better.

Maybe because the numbness is getting worse.

"Damon, I couldn't find it. It's impossible."

"Of course you couldn't." No human could, in those inky depths. "Look, it doesn't matter." She could cover him head to toe in swaddling cloth, she'd only be delaying the inevitable.

He'd wanted her here, so badly. But now that she is, he realizes she can't be._ And what's so new about that?_

"Elena, I need you to listen to me." He concentrates on focusing the energy he has left, to push some strength back into his fading voice. "You have to get out of here. _Now_." When his lids drift shut, he lets them, hoping that when they open again she'll be gone.

But no. The image hasn't changed. There she is, dark hair in ropey strands around her face, wet clothes plastered against her body. Slight, and willowy, and as immutable as a mountain range.

"Why are you still here?" he asks desperately.

But he knows the answer. He realizes, with a sense of futility, that he's managed to swap one trap for another. Elena has a hopeless case, lying in front of her, needing to be saved. And this is _Elena_. She's bound to find that infinitely harder to resist than some mystically enchanted piece of junk.

"I'm not leaving. I'm getting you out of this."

And that's Elena for you. Brave. Determined. Delusional.

"Elena-" But she is already shaking her head, in a stubborn preemptive refusal.

"Please Elena, be reasonable-"

"Reasonable? _Reasonable_, Damon?" Her tone is angry, but her lower lip trembles, and her eyebrows peak together with a vulnerability that makes his insides feel like they're made of glass.

"Almost everyone I love has died. Or given themselves up. Or keeps throwing themselves at werewolves, or originals, or some invincible souped-up combination of the two. And somehow I'm supposed to stay _reasonable_ here?"

"No, Damon. _No._"

"If accepting that I'm going to lose you too, is what it means to be reasonable, then I'm done with reasonable." Her voice breaks, and Damon thinks his heart maybe breaks a little with it.

"You don't get to give up, Damon. I won't let you."

In some ways, this is the story of their relationship.

Always telling each other what to do, and neither one of them listening.

* * *

><p>He's lost time again. Was it seconds, minutes? It's not good when there's so little left of it to lose.<p>

And he's cold. So very cold. Would he be feeling this if he were human? Or is it the vampire blood slowly seeping out of him, leaching out its mystical life force. Bringing him closer and closer to the cold dead corpse he really is.

Elena is bent across him. He can see the water droplets on her eyelashes, smell the damp scent of her skin. It's confusing him. The lake was freshwater, it had to be. But he could swear she smells like the ocean.

She's pushing, tugging, running her hands over metal links. He can guess what she's doing. Searching for a weakness. A weakness he knows full well isn't there.

But he lets her. Not like he has much choice at this point.

And don't think that, just because he's technically more than half-way dead, he in any way misses the irony.

Elena _finally_ has her hands all over him.

And he's too numb to feel it.

He gives a half-chuckle that sounds embarrassingly like a whimper.

Those big serious eyes are back on him, even as she sinks to her knees beside him. He knows she must have reached the obvious conclusion by now.

She can't save him.

Never could, really.

Tears are streaming down her face, but he doesn't think she's actually noticed.

"Elena," he whispers, "_please_ go."

She doesn't.

Of course she doesn't.

Instead, she reaches out her hand to lay gentle fingers against his face. She brushes the pad of her thumb along the skin beneath his lips.

_That_ he feels.

When she pulls it back, he sees her thumb is smudged with still-drying blood. His blood.

She rubs it between her fingertips, staring at it, as if entranced.

He doesn't see why. It's not like it's something she hasn't seen before.

It's not like there's not plenty of it, all over the place right now.

Then he hears a tiny voice that must be hers.

"How much would I need?"

And maybe Klaus got in a head blow he didn't notice, or else he's just the slowest vampire on the planet, because he doesn't actually understand her right away. "How much?"

Tears still flow down her face, and she's holding herself with an awkward stiffness he doesn't really understand.

"Blood, Damon. How much blood?" Still so quiet, like she's a little unsure of the question. Or afraid of it.

And that's when he gets it.

"_Elena_." He tries to make it a warning, but it comes out more like a plea.

She's still staring at her fingers, refusing to look at him. Damon suspects she's refusing to look at a lot of things right now.

"I could save you, Damon-"

"No." And there's no pussy plea in his voice, not this time around.

She is _not_ doing this.

Not even over his dead body.

"No, Elena. _Hell_ no."

"I can't let you die." Deep, endless eyes look up at him, shiny with the tears yet to fall. "I won't."

Sweet, stupid, crazy girl.

"It's not going to be up to you, Elena."

"Really, Damon? Because I don't recall asking for permission. _You_ didn't."

It's a low blow, at a time like this (even if he deserves it).

But it doesn't matter.

"It's not up to me either, Elena."

"It's _too late_. To die, to come back. To drink human blood. Transitioning takes time."

"We don't have it." He looks at her and he thinks that, maybe, she's actually listening (_thank God_ she's listening).

"You do this, I'll still be dead. Stefan will still be enslaved. Your biological father will still be buried cold in the ground. And _everything_ that we did it for, the humanity we were trying to save, will be gone."

He wants to kill her for even considering it.

Or maybe kiss her.

She always did make him so damn confused.

"Elena, you can't fix this." He looks into those dark, beautiful eyes, trying to put the farewell into his face that he can't bring himself to say. "I'm sorry, sweetie."

But, apparently, he's wasting his time.

Because those eyes aren't actually looking at him anymore.

They're looking behind him, as Elena's lips firm into a familiar determined line.

He doesn't like it.

He doesn't like what he hears next, either.

"No Damon, _I'm_ sorry."

And what he sees next, he doesn't understand at all.

Elena runs away from him.


	13. Wake Up

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

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><p>The sun is so bright.<p>

So why isn't it burning?

It's not the sun at all.

It's headlights. Of a car.

A very _large_ car.

It's a fucking ship on wheels. And it's coming straight for him.

_Oh Shit._

It's the last thing Damon thinks as he descends into blackness.

* * *

><p><em>Oh God, she's killed him. <em>

"Damon? Damon, wake up."

She had to do it.

There was no other way.

"Damon, _please_ wake up."

She couldn't get the stake out of the ground, so she had to get him off the stake. She couldn't get him off the stake without getting him out of the chains.

She couldn't break the chains, so she broke the brickwork instead.

She doesn't think she can cover the check for the SUV.

She doesn't really care right now. It's just a stupid goddamn car.

"Damon?"

His body is free, but it came at a price.

She knows she did more damage when she hit the pillar. She couldn't help but hit him too. But what option did she have? Elena chokes back tears.

He's pale. So deathly pale. Lying motionless, shirt in tatters around a limp body. She's never seen it like this. She's seen it alive, and cocky, an instrument of life. Of everything that is Damon. She's even pretended, on occasion, not to notice its vital beauty. It's not _supposed_ to look like this. Blanched white and utterly lifeless.

Except for the blood. Red, bright, and so very much of it.

She's almost glad of it though. It's obscuring her view of a wound that she really doesn't want to see.

No, she's got to pull herself together. She's _seen_ dead vampires. They don't look like this at all. They are ashen and gray, petrified veins and mummified monster. They aren't this clear, ghostly white. They're not so smooth. Or soft. Or so tragically beautiful.

So he must be alive. Somehow. He must be.

Which means that he can heal. And come back to her.

"Damon?"

But he isn't healing, is he?

He needs blood.

And she doesn't have any.

Except her own.

"Damon? Hey, Damon. You need to drink." She curls a hand behind his neck, and pushes her free wrist against his mouth.

She'd get more reaction from a ragdoll.

She slaps his face, and tries again. "Damon, come on now. Drink."

He shows no sign of awareness. When she removes her wrist, his lips remain as they're left, slightly parted and untroubled by breath. His eyelids never flicker, dark lashes lying flat and completely still against the pale planes of his cheekbones.

It scares her, how much she'd give, to see those eyes open again.

Without thinking, she presses a kiss to his lips.

The first thing that occurs to her, is that they are so much colder than last time she kissed them.

The second is that she has _got_ to stop doing this.

She tells herself (like she told herself last time) that these are exceptional circumstances.

And she wonders how long she really thinks she can manage to keep doing that?

But this isn't the time for self-recrimination. That she can save for later. Assuming they manage to survive this.

Assuming she can get him to feed.

It seems ironic. Just days ago (an eternity ago) she was begging him _not_ to feed on her.

He'd been confused at the time. Hell, he'd thought he was a human - a lovelorn human, chasing after forever with her selfish bitch of a doppelganger. But that hadn't stopped his instincts taking over. He'd still cut her with vampire teeth, fed not as a young human but as the predator that lies within him. Elena unconsciously puts a hand to her neck, feeling the roughness of the scabs that still heal over the bite.

She hesitates only briefly before taking to them with her nails, ripping them free of the raw skin beneath.

Tiny drops of blood bloom beneath her fingers. It's not enough to give a mosquito a decent meal. But it's a taste.

Maybe it's enough to trigger the instinct again?

She turns her attention back to Damon's mouth, this time to slip her fingers past his teeth and pass their blood-stained tips across his tongue. She notes with relief that it's warmer than his lips were.

And was that movement, under her touch?

It's so hard to tell when her fingers are shaking.

She waits, but nothing else happens. She removes her fingers and moves to bend over him, cradling his head in her hands and trying to guide his mouth directly over the reopened wounds. "Damon, drink." She holds him there, fingers pressed hard into his sweat-dampened hair, twisting her neck to keep it exposed.

"Damon, come _on_. _Please_."

She's cold, and damp, and beginning to cramp up in this awkward position. Goddamn stubborn vampire, never doing what she wants him to. She wills him to wake, to bite her already. To come back to obstinate, arrogant, unpredictable life.

And still, she waits. She watches the fountain bubbling in her eyeline, the angels that gaze peacefully through the water, the smiles that seem to promise that everything will be alright.

She wishes she could believe them as she struggles not to cry.

And then she hears it.

Or, at least, she thinks she does.

It's a small sound, hard to make out against the backdrop of rushing water. A tiny moan, or maybe a sigh?

And was that a brief, wet press of tongue against her skin, or just her over-active imagination?

She stills, heart in her throat.

Damon's body snaps rigid so suddenly that she drops him in surprise.

He recoils with the speed of a cobra. Sharp pain stabs through her as fangs slice into skin.

* * *

><p>Damon floats on a velvet red cloud. Rich salty warmth flows through his body, barreling down his veins and buzzing through every pore.<p>

He feels like he wants to stay here forever.

Somewhere, far away, someone gives a soft cry. He thinks it might be his name.

He thinks it might be...

_Elena?_

Where is he, what is he...?

_Elena?_

What has he...?_ Shit._

"Elena?" He throws himself from the warm body he was just losing himself in, a growing sense of disgust replacing the rapidly fading euphoria. And also...

Oh God, when did the steam train hit him?

Not a train. A car.

He sees it now, crumpled, airbags deployed. Front end surrounded by crumbling bricks, and jammed into the wooden structure leaning part-way off its foundations.

Nearby, bloodied wood still erupts at a dangerous angle from the ground, marking the spot where he so recently played the meat on a vampire kebab.

"Damon?" Elena is back, hovering over him and looking unreasonably, no, _irrationally_ happy. Particularly considering he was just trying to make an appetizer out of her. For the second time this week.

"Damon." Small, eager hands clutch at him, curling around his neck, his shoulders, grabbing at his chest, as if trying to ascertain that he's real, and not some apparition in front of her. "You're OK."

Firstly, he knows he's not an apparition. He's fairly sure apparitions aren't capable of feeling like they've been hit by a truck (even when they have).

Secondly, this little physical exam she's got going on might be kind of cute, but it's _really_ not a good idea. Not now that his nerve endings have returned. And _definitely_ not while he still has her blood in his gums and the taste of her on his tongue. Besides, she is clearly suffering bouts of impulsive insanity at the moment. A man (or even something else entirely) could easily be tempted to take advantage of such a state.

He pushes her back to give himself some space.

Elena immediately gentles her touch and starts to withdraw, a mix of hurt rejection and contrite apology on her face.

"I'm sorry. Am I hurting you?"

Damon moves to cover the hand that hesitates (now feather light) against his chest - ostensibly to soften his physical rebuff, but mainly because he's an idiot, and he just can't help himself.

Elena holds his gaze, the question still in her eyes. And because he really _is_ an idiot, and is feeling wrecked (and reckless besides) he decides to go with the truth today.

"Yes," he says simply.

He releases her hand, and pretends he doesn't care when she lets it fall. Her eyes slide away from his in a way he can't interpret.

But then they are back, so bright and clear he thinks he might have imagined it. "But you're going to be OK?"

Probably not in this lifetime, no.

But he knows that's not what she's talking about.

"It's not _me_ I'm worried about, Elena. _Please_ tell me your neck ending up in my teeth was an accident on your part?"

Elena looks discouragingly unrepentant.

"And did you, or did you not, _run over_ me with that four-wheeled killing machine?" he adds, glancing again at the wrecked SUV.

"Not over. More... into." Elena explains patiently. "And it was only a few times." She waves the statement away with a careless hand, like they are discussing how much she flossed today.

"You ran a car, at speed, into a brick wall. _A few times._ And then you offered your neck to a mostly-unconscious blood-starved vampire?"

"I thought we'd talked about your suicidal tendencies?"

Elena looks at him with mild disapproval, like _he_ is the one who's been running his fragile, mortal body into small buildings and diving neck-first into the fangs of bloodthirsty killers.

"Come on Damon, it was hardly a wall. And I knew you weren't going to hurt me."

"No Elena, I was going to _kill_ you."

He feels rather like he is going to kill her now.

"Unconscious vampires can't fight their instincts, you do realize that, right?"

From the way she now sits, patiently, as if waiting for this lecture to end, he can tell she isn't really being convinced. If she's even listening.

Which she probably isn't.

Because she never does.

"Damon?"

"_Yes_, _Elena_?"

He knows he sounds angry. But he can't help it. He tries _so_ hard to keep her safe, and she keeps... she keeps pulling _this_ kind of shit on him.

"You're welcome," she says.

And then she smiles.

And it looks so bright on that tear-stained face that he finds, infuriatingly, that he can't seem to stay angry anymore.

* * *

><p>Elena breathes a sigh of relief as she sees Damon emerge from the water, the fingers of his left hand waggling triumphantly. "You found it."<p>

"Yup. Not a moment too soon." The glow of pre-dawn has started to color the sky around them. Damon still moves with a certain gingerness, and she isn't fooled by the apparently careless placement of his right hand across his body. The water has washed away most of the blood, and now she can see the still-healing scars. She catches a flash of angry, shiny flesh at the worst injury site as he shrugs into the cover of his intact jacket.

He catches her look. "Don't worry honey, ask me to take my shirt off later and I'll let you look as long as you want." He gives her a lascivious smirk that, not long ago, she'd imagined she might never see again.

"Seriously Damon, are you ok? Do we need to get you some more blood?"

He rolls his eyes, "Relax, Elena. So I won't be eating any burgers for a while, I'll be _fine_."

He walks over to the space that she freed him from. The site looks even more disturbing in the dawning morning, like buckets of crimson paint have been spilled all over the green of the grass.

It's easier to think of that way, rather than dwelling on how it actually all came from the vampire who now stands in the middle of it, frowning in distaste at the wood protruding from the ground.

"You pulled me off that on your own?" He looks at her appraisingly.

"You see anyone else around here to help? _Someone_ had to save you Damon," she informs him pertly.

"Right._ Thank you,_ Elena." He gives her a grudging look. "I may have failed to mention that before, in my haste to make yet another pointless attempt at talking some sense into you."

Well, it's not the most gracious gratitude she's ever received, but she supposes it will have to do.

"So what now?"

"Now? We're getting out of here. Just... give me a second."

Damon bends to pick up the chains that lie amongst the fallen bricks, coiling them in loops around a forearm.

"You're taking those with us...?" What, does he want a memento? Because that's a memory that Elena, for one, is all for forgetting. And she only saw the After shot.

Unless...

"Wait... are those for Stefan?"

Damon looks at her silently, waiting for her to raise some objection, she's sure.

Instead, she just nods. "You think we can find him, then?"

He seems relieved by her lack of protest.

"He's close, Elena. I know it. Klaus got here so fast, they can't be stationed far away. Stefan's still there. He's got to be."

So this could be it, then.

Elena doesn't understand why she suddenly feels conflicted. It's what she wants. She knows it's what she wants. It's what they've been trying for, all this time. This could be what finally gets them Stefan back. So why does she feel like she's about to lose something?

Maybe because she just almost did.

"So what about Klaus?"

"Klaus isn't back here yet. That means he's still busy with Katherine."

Damon perhaps senses something of her turmoil, because he pauses what he's doing to turn and face her. "The reality is, Elena, that there probably won't be a better time. I have to get him out. This is my chance."

_Our chance._ She doesn't say it out loud. She'll wait until they're out of here to rehash that old argument. Since Damon's now slinging the chains over a shoulder, hopefully that's any time now.

But he seems to be distracted, stooping to pick up something a short distance from where he retrieved the discarded chain.

Something Elena didn't notice before, lying in the blood-slicked grass.

A knife.

A long, wood-handled hunting knife. The blade looks sharp, and angry, and is covered in the same crimson as everything else around here.

Just looking at it is making her feel slightly sick.

"That's what Klaus...?" She can't finish the sentence. In her speech or anywhere else.

"Yup. Left it here for later, I guess. All that pesky shape-changing must make it hard to transport torture tools while you're on the move."

Damon is still turning it over in his hands. He might be a vampire, but it's not healthy, surely, to be doing that? Not considering what it was doing to _him_ a few hours ago? Sometimes Elena can't tell for sure, when Damon genuinely doesn't care, or when he's just pretending again.

To be honest, she's not even sure if Damon always can.

She puts her hand out for it anyway. "We won't be needing that." she says flatly. "For anybody."

He ignores her. "There's something engraved on the handle. A name, I think."

He rubs at the blood-smeared handle and tilts it under his gaze. _"R. Jennings._ I guess it's a loaner."

"You think that's the owner?"

Damon stops his examination to look up at her, a determined gleam in his eye.

"_I think_ Stefan just got a lot easier to find."


	14. Jealousy is in the Blood I

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

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* * *

><p>It's going to storm soon. Elena can smell it on the air that sits thickly around her.<p>

She tells herself it's a _good_ thing. The same dark cloud cover that is making the sky dim and her footing treacherous should, with any luck, also keep prying eyes from picking up her figure as she moves through the trees. Still, she keeps a cautious distance from the graveled drive that she is using to guide herself through the woods.

At the end of the drive, a cottage nestles into the hills, blending in with the gray of the morning.

According to local sources, this would be the summer residence of one Richard Jennings, small business owner and recreational deer hunter.

It is also, potentially, the latest guesthouse of choice for Klaus and his merry band of murderers.

Elena cautiously circles around the west wall of the house, hoping to get a better look. What little sunlight there is hasn't made it to this side of the building, and the dim glow of artificial light can be seen coming from the interior. There is a large oak, just a few feet from the closest window, and she scoots in behind its generous trunk. She has some shelter in the shadows here. If she can just get a _little_ closer, maybe she can catch a glimpse inside without attracting anyone's attention?

Or maybe not.

Without warning, she is grabbed from behind. She opens her mouth to scream, but a strong hand covers her face, preventing her from making a sound.

A low voice hisses in her ear.

"I thought I told you to stay in the car?"

_Damon._

God. Does he really have to be such a dramatic ass about it? Elena determinedly collects herself, commanding her pounding heart to calm down as she pulls his hand from her face.

"Yeah, Damon, you did," she hisses back. "But you _also_ knew there was not a chance in hell I was actually going to. You've been gone _forever_." As if either of them _really_ believed she was going to wait patiently in the car while she knew he was out here, probably getting himself into another near fatal scenario without her. Has he already forgotten that working alone has almost got him dead _twice_ in the past week? If it wasn't for Stefan and Elena (and, as much as she hates to admit it, that little wench Katherine) then he wouldn't even _be_ here to argue with her.

"So what's the deal? Is Stefan here or not?" she demands.

She receives a look of pure exasperation before being released reluctantly. "Yeah, he's in there alright." Damon grimaces. "_Unfortunately_, entry is by invitation only. I can't get in right at this moment."

"And_ no_," Damon halts Elena's intended response with a finger against her lips, "_you_ can't get in either."

"But-"

"Not kidding, Elena. _I_ would only need an invitation. _You_ would need to get a stake through my heart before I'd let you anywhere close to inside. Stef's not alone in there. At least three of Klaus's henchmen are up and about, and there could be more in there somewhere, I couldn't tell for sure."

"Fine, so we get him to come to us then. We just need to find a way to let him know we're here."

Damon cringes slightly as he averts his eyes from hers. "Yes, well, about that... I've got good news and bad news."

"The thing is..." he gives her a sideways glance. "Stefan _already_ knows we're here, Elena." He shrugs. "Vampire hearing, remember? Baby bro's not on the bunny diet anymore. I'm pretty sure he realized the second we showed up. He _definitely_ saw me when I was scoping the place out."

And he still hasn't come to find them.

"Do you think Klaus has compelled him to stay?"

"I don't think... it suits Klaus's purposes, for Stefan to be here under anything other than his free will," Damon says carefully.

No. Elena didn't really think so either.

This is what she was afraid of.

"He doesn't want to be saved."

Stefan's back on the blood, and he doesn't care about them anymore.

Any of them.

Maybe he really is happier now that he's left behind his life of high morals and high misery. Now that he can drown his regrets instead of drowning in them. Maybe he's actually _happy_. Because let's face it, _happy_ isn't the first adjective to spring to mind if she were to describe him in his life back in Mystic Falls. Can she even really blame him if he doesn't want to go back to that?

But Damon is shaking his head. "No, Elena. _Of course_ he wants to be saved. Deep down, anyway. He's just letting his damn martyr streak get in the way." She mustn't be hiding her disappointment as well as she thought, because Damon reaches over to cup her chin in his hand. "Hey Elena, this is a _good_ sign. It means that there's some part of Stefan still in there, somewhere, trying to protect us." He nods at her encouragingly.

And he's right. Of course he is. She's letting her own doubts and insecurities get in the way, letting them cloud her judgment. Stefan would never willingly choose this life for himself. Not in his right mind, anyway.

"So we'll protect him," Elena decides determinedly. "Even if it's from himself." _Especially_ from himself.

Sometimes it seems like rescuing the Salvatores from their inherent tendency to self-destruct is a full time job.

"I need to see him. Maybe_ I_ can convince him to come out." Elena starts to move back towards the building's exposed window, but Damon stops her.

"Oh no. Not looking like _that_ you don't."

Elena looks down at her plain t-shirt and blue jeans. Huh. She must have missed the dress code.

"And why not?"

Damon ignores her to pull a silver flask from a hip-pocket of his own dark jeans. He grins as he waggles it at her. "Emergency stash. Recent events have taught me to be prepared."

"Damon, give me that, you don't need a drink right now." She reaches for the flask impatiently, but he whisks it out of reach.

"It's not _for_ me, Elena."

"_I_ don't need a drink either."

Still ignoring her, he grips a strip of his battered shirt, yanking it free with a quick movement, before dousing it liberally with the contents of the flask.

"Damon, what are you-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, now you're gonna smell just like me." He sighs dramatically, "You know, this isn't quite how I'd _envisioned _realizing that particular fantasy, but-"

"Damon!"

"Unless you'd prefer I lick it off?" His eyes linger, somewhat insolently, on the patch of skin where her neck meets her shoulder.

Oh. Damon's bite. Elena hasn't done anything about cleaning it up since he came back to consciousness. It wasn't really on her list of priorities, at the time.

To be honest, it still really isn't.

Lingering hungry looks from bad boy vampires aside.

"Come on Elena, it's the good stuff." Damon says, swishing the remains of the bottle encouragingly in front of her. "And it's always better to smell of whisky than AB negative."

He rolls his eyes at her look. _"_Look Elena, It is _really_ not a good idea to take a blood lusting vampire and shove the girl he loves in front of him in your... state. It's just asking for trouble."

"What? I'm somehow in more danger _because_ he loves me? That doesn't even make any sense, Damon."

"That's because you're not thinking like a blood lusting vampire. Well, actually..." Damon reconsiders, "the point is more that you're thinking, which... blood lusting vampires? They don't do so much."

He sighs impatiently. "Elena, you have to understand that right now all of Stefan's emotions - hate, love, desire, jealousy - they're all going to be feeding into the same thing. _Hunger_. We both know he can't control it, and if he sees you looking like this you're just going to be a flame to his very bloody, very violent tinder. _Not_ going to happen."

He steps closer until his face hovers close to hers. It is intent and strangely tender as he wipes carefully at the bloodstains on her skin.

And he's right. Now she does smell a little more like Damon.

Oddly, she finds she doesn't really mind.

"Much better." He steps back, beaming boyishly at her.

"Great," says Elena impatiently, "so now you'll let me do this?"

"Tell me Elena, do you put the same passion and diligence into your school work that you do into this ever-present death wish of yours, because if so, I have to say, you must be a shoo-in for Harvard?"

"_Damon._"

"OK, OK. Just hang tight on that death wish for one more second for me." Damon disappears for a moment before blurring back in front of her. "Alright. So the three musketeers are still absorbed in their game of poker, but judging by the way the third is playing with that trash hand, he's going to be pushed out any time now. You're going to have to be quick. The second it looks like their attention might wander in our direction, or someone else shows up, I'm vamping you away, got it?"

Ah, the efficiencies of vampire vision. Elena will probably be lucky to make it to forty without needing glasses.

Actually, let's be honest. With her current future trajectory, Elena will be lucky to make it to forty.

Best she focus on making it to lunchtime.

"Elena?" Damon, the immortal whose lifestyle choices suggest he has less chance of making it to her fortieth than she does, is still waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, Damon, I've got it."

He pauses. "Elena, you know what you see in there..."

She waves his words away, "Damon, I know what Stefan's like on blood, ok? I'm not expecting to find Mother Theresa."

"I just wonder what exactly you _are_ expecting to find?"

Well, what is she expecting to find?

In the end, her answer is for the benefit of both of them.

"Look, it doesn't _matter_. Whatever he is now, whatever he's done, we need to get him out."

Damon looks at her quietly, then nods. He holds out his hand and she takes it. With his free hand he pulls her into his waist and moves so that, suddenly, she is beside him in view of the glass.

The inside of the house shows the touch of a definitively masculine hand. The predominant colors are brown and black, and the furnishings are functional. The only decoration, if you could call it that, is the smattering of trophies she can see proudly hanging on the walls. It feels like the dead eyes are watching her reproachfully from their mountings. At times like this she wonders how thin the line really is between vampirism and humanity. She can practically hear Damon's voice in her head, asking her if he's so very bad for preying on the Richards of the world, when they are more than happy to prey on the Bambis.

Which, of course, makes her think of Stefan.

She can't see him anywhere.

She concentrates on casting her eyes about the room. She sees the three men at a small round table, engrossed in their card game. It's smoky in there, which has the effect of diffusing the interior lighting into a dull luminous haze around the table. They must have been at this a while. She wonders if they are all usually cigar smokers, or if they are just taking advantage of the possessions of the owner to support a new habit. Cigars seem to fit in with the image Dick (and yes, she is now calling him Dick) appears to be going for.

Behind them, between the card table and the window Elena is watching through, there is a fourth, unfamiliar figure, pacing the room with frenetic energy. His shoulders are hunched, his movements aggressive, and as he turns, Elena sees that his blood-stained lips are curled slightly into a hard, permanent snarl.

"Stefan," she whispers.

The figure's head wrenches up.

She finds, for one second, that she is looking through the haze and directly into his eyes.

They are glazed, soulless. Hungry.

And utterly empty.

She involuntarily shivers and feels Damon's hold on her tighten.

Right. She told him she was up to this.

And she is.

"Stefan?" She speaks quietly, but she knows he can hear her. "Stefan. _I love you_."

"Please come home," she whispers.

And as she looks pleadingly into the eyes of this dark, angry stranger, she thinks she maybe sees a glimpse of something...

Something that is lost as he looks away from her.

She is left staring at the rigid edges his profile cuts against the smoky room.

Elena gets his message, loud and clear.

And she knows, in her heart, that he won't look back again.

She's traveled 800 miles to find him. Now, finally, he's just a few yards and one pane of glass away from her.

And it's the furthest she's felt from him since they started this.

* * *

><p>Elena's tried cajoling. She's tried pleading. She's tried everything she can think of to penetrate Stefan's wall and convince him to come back with her.<p>

It doesn't seem much like she's getting anywhere.

Damon seems to be of the same opinion.

"Well, there you go. You've seen lover boy. He's seen you. You've been through all the sappy salutations in Hallmark's love-bunny section. I'm ready to throw up and he's still firmly in murderous-martyr mode. A _very_ tricky combination only my brother could manage to pull off with such tortured conviction, by the way."

"Damon, I've barely tried-"

"You're _wasting your time_ Elena. It's not working, and I'm not willing to keep babysitting while you serenade my brother with soulmate talk."

She was having some of the same thoughts herself, but still, his attitude is making her bristle. "You're going to give up on him out of jealousy? Seriously Damon?"

"No, _Elena._ I'm just facing the fact that this isn't working, and we don't have _time_ for something that isn't working," he snaps. "Once we find something that does, we can all go home and I'll go back to tolerating your 24/7 declarations of eternal love, just like I did before you lost him."

She doesn't know what to say to that. So she doesn't say anything.

The sky has been growing blacker as they've been standing here, and a roll of thunder rumbles ominously in the distance. She feels like she wants to commiserate with the weather._ Yeah, I know how you feel._

"We _need_ another plan, Elena."

She opens her mouth, but before she has a chance to speak he growls and pulls them both back behind the tree. Elena hears the faint creaking of the front door swinging open, and then the crunch of gravel. She peers around the other side of their cover to watch as a figure moves away from the front of the building, climbing into a vehicle to take off down the drive.

"Hmmm... And then there were two." Damon cocks his head.

He shifts as if to move towards the front of the house, but Elena puts a restraining hand on his arm. "Damon, what are you doing?"

"Another plan."

"Which is?"

"We both know why Stefan is here Elena. It's because he struck a deal. He serves Klaus and I live. And you know what the problem with deals is, Elena?" He raises his eyebrows and pushes a finger into her chest. "They only _work_ when everyone involved honors them."

She pushes his finger away. "I don't follow."

And still, she's fairly sure she doesn't like where this going.

"Well... While Stefan is oh-so-intent on keeping his end of the bargain, there's one thing he isn't taking into consideration here. Not everyone involved in this deal is honorable."

"You mean Klaus?"

"Nope. I mean _me_."

"Now if you'll excuse me,_ I_ have got a fight to pick."

"Whoa, Damon," she grabs him with both hands in an attempt to physically drag him back to her. "Why _the hell_ would you do that?"

Damon shrugs her hands off him with ease. "It's perfectly logical Elena. If Stefan knows keeping his loyalty to Klaus is going to make me dead, then it defeats the whole purpose of the deal. There will be no reason for him to continue to martyr himself."

"No, it's too risky Damon. And _stupid_." She can't help but wonder if she is in some way responsible for this latest reckless behavior with her ill-advised jealousy dig. "You don't even know who's in there. We know he's got at least one warlock on staff. And there could be more vampires. Or worse."

"Besides," she points out, "you said Stefan can hear us. So he can hear us now. He can hear _you_ now. He knows your idiot plan. I don't see him coming to stop you."

"Just because he can hear us doesn't mean he's _listening_, Elena. I'll bet he stopped doing that about the same time you started cueing the violins and trying to tug on his heart strings. Seriously, us men can only take so much of that mush before we are forced to tune out as a matter of self-preservation."

"God knows I did." he adds under his breath.

"And anyway, a visual demonstration _always_ has more impact. Trust me."

"Damon, no. You _know_ he's unpredictable on the blood. And even if Stefan takes your side, it doesn't guarantee you'll win."

"So I'll be dead. And he'll be free, and you two get to ride off into your domestic little sunset. Or..." Damon looks toward the murky sky, "slightly gloomy sunrise, anyway."

"Look Elena, I know it's not perfect. But I don't see what else we've got."

"We've got his addiction to blood." She plants her feet stubbornly. "And we've got me."

That gets his attention.

He turns back to her, eyes narrowed in a glare that might have intimidated her once. Of course, she sees it so often these days, it barely registers.

"Oh no no _no_, Elena."

"Whatever it is you're thinking in that crazy little head of yours, you _unthink_ it. Right now."

"Damon, we were going about it all wrong, trying not to provoke him. You want to get him out, right? Provoking him is exactly what we _need_ to be doing."

Elena meets his gaze levelly. "I think you should bite me again."

"And this time, make sure you make it look good."


	15. Jealousy is in the Blood II

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

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><p>Damon figures he must have some lingering damage from his recent werevamp torture session. He seems to be experiencing some kind of auditory hallucinations.<p>

Because he could swear that Elena, standing there in stonewash jeans and sensible sneakers, just asked him to bite her. Again.

That's _definitely_ what his inner demon heard. He felt its sudden lunge against the bounds of its leash. Making his undead pulse quicken and his cursed soul throb. Demanding to be set free.

He ignores it, instead cocking his head coolly at the slim girl who stands in front of him, apparently oblivious to the inner turmoil she is so carelessly subjecting him to.

"I _know _I'm good, Elena, but really? A bite or two is all it takes? You're a fully-fledged vampire groupie now?"

"I'm just being practical Damon. We're trying to lure out a human blood junkie. And here I am," she gestures at herself, "a giant human blood bag. And you said yourself - love, rage, jealousy, they all feed the addiction. We should be _using_ that."

Yes, _let's_ be practical. Distill this down to the essential components. Elena, playing the giant human blood bag. Damon, playing the glorified can opener. Both of them, playing bait to an off-the-rails ripper. What could possibly go wrong?

"It's a bad idea."

"_Yours_ is worse."

OK, his plan might not be a paragon of brilliance, but at least it doesn't involve the equivalent of serving Elena up to a blood-thirsty vampire in a glass. Perhaps she'd like him to see if he can't scrounge up a straw and some festively-colored cocktail umbrellas while they're at it?

"Forget it," he says dismissively. "No one's getting bitten here."

"You can't guarantee that, Damon, can you? Not if you start this little war you've got planned." Elena tilts her chin stubbornly. "What if there's a werewolf in there? What if Stefan does come to your rescue and you both get bitten? Will that make you happy, if both of you die to prove your stupid point? What's going to happen to me then?"

Of course, they both know she's not _really_ worried about what's going to happen to her. He's had far too much experience with far more skilled manipulators than this little ingenue not to recognize such an obvious ploy.

But he doesn't much like that she's trying it. He doesn't like being manipulated. His inner demon, who is getting increasingly restless, doesn't like it either.

He _also_ doesn't like that she might still have a valid point.

"You wanted a visual demonstration, Damon. So let's give him one. I bet if Stefan sees you taking blood from me, he won't be able to stand it."

"Yeah, Elena," Damon agrees caustically. "I bet he won't be able to stand it so much that we're both going to end up as corpses out here before he even realizes what he's done. I don't know if you noticed, but I've only recently returned to some semblance of a whole and semi-functional vampire body, and Stefan there, well he's a little more well fed than usual. He could be the most dangerous thing in that house right now."

"Besides, I don't think you've really thought about what you're asking here."

"Damon, we've done this twice before already. It wasn't so bad. What's the big deal?"

_It wasn't so bad._ Hmmm. Not exactly how Damon almost-but-not-quite remembers it. Damon's eyes dip back to the curve of her neck absently. He is lost for a moment, watching the steady pulse by her clavicle, dim memories of forbidden bliss tugging at his senses.

"I wasn't in my right mind either of those times." He notices her watching him and snaps his gaze self-consciously back to her face. "I didn't know what I was doing."

He realizes a part of him is actually very happy to leave those experiences buried in a fog of relative obscurity in his mind. To be honest, he isn't sure he really wants to do it again while in his right mind.

He has the unsettling feeling that if he does, this time the memory won't be so easily forgotten.

"OK, so you'll know what you're doing this time, that just makes it safer then, doesn't it?"

That statement alone tells him she has no idea what she's getting them into.

Damon surveys her deliberately for a moment, letting some of the monster's hunger show through his eyes. He decides to add some hunger of the man to it for good measure as he takes half a step into her personal space. He looks down on her, gaze narrowed in warning. "Tell me you don't _actually_ believe that, Elena?"

But she stands her ground, pointedly ignoring the message flashing in his eyes.

"I trust you, Damon."

_God save us all._

"I _know_ that," he grits his teeth in frustration. "And you _really shouldn't_."

And his damn demon is whispering to him again. Challenging him to prove to her exactly _why_ she shouldn't trust him.

He tells it to shut the hell up.

"This will work Damon, you know it. And you _promised_ _me_ you would do what it takes to bring him back." Elena tosses her hair impatiently. "Well, _this_ is what it's going to take."

Of course. Who cares if it's an utterly unsafe, completely ludicrous plan. Because this is all for Saint Stefan - the martyring, murdering, manic-depressive vampire of Elena's dreams. Hell, Damon only just heard the 57 verse love sonnet describing how Stefan is the light in her life, the smile in her sunshine, the cream cheese in her bagel. And how she'd do anything, everything to bring him back to her.

It's enough to put a man off cream cheese bagels for life.

"Besides," Elena says pertly, stepping forward to bridge the gap between them. Close enough for him to catch the scent of whisky. And blood. And warm feminine skin. Brandy-colored eyes look up at him, challenging. "You can't pretend that you don't want to."

And now?

Now, he's had just about enough of this game.

Right.

_Careful what you wish for, sweetheart._

* * *

><p>Elena watches as Damon's jaw tenses and his irises go threateningly dark, and wonders if she's pushed this too far.<p>

Because he's angry now.

Furious, actually, if she's reading him right.

So, really, the very _last_ thing she expects is to find herself suddenly pulled back hard, her back against the warmth of his body, her face cheek to cheek with his bared vampire visage.

It belatedly occurs to her that she's been so concerned with the monster that lurks inside the building, she'd forgotten about the one out here with her.

Damon growls, low and menacing by her throat, but Elena refuses to react. She stands where she is, holding her ground. And her breath. Waiting for Damon to accept that she's called his bluff. Waiting for him to either give up this pretense or fall in with her plan.

Except that this is Damon. So he does neither.

Instead he lingers, a hair-breadth from her skin, warm breath on her shoulder. She feels it caressing a slow, languid trail, leaving a tingling wake as it moves along her neck and across her jawline before moving lazily up to her ear.

"_You know_ Elena," Damon hisses, "you don't actually _have_ to do this."

"I can think of _a lot _of other things we could do to make Stefan jealous." She can feel him hovering, so close to touching her, yet not, an almost-nuzzle against her cheek that doesn't technically achieve anything, yet somehow promises everything.

"After all," he whispers, as Elena feels the barest pressure of lips against her ear, "you can't pretend you don't want to."

"Damon-"

"Shhhh," he purrs, "I bet he's listening now."

Right. _Stefan._

This is all for Stefan's benefit. Of course it is.

The soft words he's whispering in her ear. The way one hand is curling possessively around her waist, as the fingers of the other play gently against the soft skin on the far side of her neck. The way he's somehow managed to melt the length of his body into hers until she's suddenly a little unsure of where one ends and the other begins.

Sure, he's just doing what she asked. He's making it look good. And sound good. And feel...

Like Elena might be a little out of her depth here.

"I mean... This is what you want, _right_ _Elena_?" And he's using that voice. The one that's honeyed and rough. The one that reminds Elena of the devil that Damon was when she first met him. Reminds her that he's still in there, somewhere.

And that maybe taunting him to bite her was a really, really bad idea.

"Is this what you _want_, Elena?" the devil demands against her earlobe.

Yes.

No.

_Wait._

What is it she's doing here? What is the right answer to that question supposed to be, again?

Dammit. Why is nothing ever straightforward with Damon?

But she can see Stefan now, through the window. He's stopped his pacing, hovering tensely in a position that obscures them from the view of the rest of the room's occupants whilst keeping them both in his periphery. He's still refusing to look at her - at either of them. But she sees that his eyes have turned flinty, and hard, and the veins that surround them rise in stark relief against his face.

Damon's right, they've definitely got his attention.

So there's her answer.

"Yes," she says. And her voice is far more certain than she feels. "It's what I want."

She feels Damon's sing-song hum of acknowledgment reverberate through her body as his mouth dips to meet her skin. There's a warm, slow pressure of lips against her neck. The barest scrape of teeth.

They are blunt. Human. But they still make her shiver.

He can probably taste the whisky he used on her earlier.

_No, don't do that._ Bad, _bad_ idea to think about what Damon might be tasting right now.

She tries to ignore the way every nerve in her body notices when he pauses in what he's doing.

Almost as if he is waiting for something.

No, not something.

_Someone_.

She'd almost forgotten what this is about. _Who_ this is about.

That alone suggests she could be in some serious trouble here.

But Stefan hasn't moved.

She hears a soft sigh, and a whisper she thinks might be an apology, and then the now-familiar sensation of fangs sliding into her skin. She instinctively grips against the hand on her waist, but it's hardly necessary. This is much gentler than Damon's previous bites, barely more than a stinging nip, and in moments the pain becomes lost under the endorphins flooding through her bloodstream. And also, perhaps, under something else entirely. Something she chooses not to identify right now.

Damon holds himself, motionless, hands fixing her in an unspoken command not to move. Normally, it's a direction she wouldn't need, but Elena finds she is actually having some trouble keeping herself upright at the moment, and is happy for the added support.

It takes her a moment to realize that Damon seems to be holding back. That he's not taking any of the blood he's spilling, but letting it flow instead. She can feel the warm, wet rivulets as they glide unchecked down her neck and over her shoulder.

She supposes that's for Stefan's benefit too.

The younger Salvatore still hasn't moved, but she can see his breathing is labored, uneven, and the veins around his eyes seem even darker than they were a minute ago. She figures he can probably smell the blood from there.

But Damon's control, initially so rock solid, seems to be fading. She feels a slight tremble running through him now, and wonders how long he can keep this up.

The blood is starting to soak into her top, spreading like spilled ink across pale blue cotton. Her legs are starting to feel weak, and she braces them, determined not to let them give. Knowing if Damon senses weakness, he might end this. And with it, their chance to make this work.

Damon finally releases his teeth from her skin, but otherwise remains as he is, head still dipped and body held against her. The only movement she feels from him now is his chest as it rises and falls against her back, shallow and erratic. Just like Stefan's.

Just like hers.

_Serious. _

_Trouble._

But it's working. She knows it is. So when Damon starts to draw away, Elena doesn't let him, reaching an arm back to pull his head back to her in silent demand.

The hand on her waist tightens as soft lips close back against her skin. This time, she feels the tell-tale pull through her blood. It seems to be drawing straight through her knees, and she instinctively falls back against the body behind her as she hears Damon give a low groan of surrender that she doesn't think is for Stefan's benefit.

And that does it.

Elena finds herself suddenly alone on her unsteady legs, teetering against nothing.

She grabs blindly for the trunk she knows is nearby in an attempt to steady herself.

"I said, get OFF her."

As Elena's vision clears, she turns to find Stefan, crouched threateningly over where Damon is now sprawled on the ground, fangs bared in a primeval hiss and eyes darkened with scarlet. The muscles in his body cord and bunch with a ferocity she's never seen before.

And suddenly Elena is scared. Very, very scared.

"Stefan, get off him."

The brothers have their hands to each other's throats. Damon is trying to brace his arms against his brother, doing his best to keep some distance between them. But he is still weak. And Stefan is strong, and possibly insane. And shit, this is all her fault.

Elena fumbles in her pocket for the vials of vervain she took from the car.

"Stefan, stop this. Stop it now." She pleads desperately.

But he isn't listening to her. He is caught up in his rage, a wild animal with wide eyes and pulsing veins and only a passing resemblance to anything human. His fury is making him blind, and deaf, and for the first time she wonders if he is really capable of killing them both.

She needs to do something.

Fast.

"Damon?"

His eyes are half-closed as he pants with the effort of trying to hold his brother away from him. Stefan, meanwhile, looks fresh, and vibrant, and like he could snap Damon's neck with one good squeeze.

Elena feels like a fist is closing around her own windpipe, making it difficult to breathe. "Damon?"

"Damon, I need you to distract him."

"Any more distracting, Elena, and I'll be dead." he gasps.

Fair point. And also what she's afraid of.

Elena tries to approach from behind, but Stefan is far too quick for her, knocking the darts out of her hands and pinning her back against the tree within microseconds.

He plants his arms either side of her head, leaning menacingly over her, green eyes interleaved with red. They are so close to her own that she can see where the blood pools from the spidery web of veins around the iris.

"I knew it." He hisses.

"I _knew_ if I left you with him, he'd take you from me."

"Stefan, that's not... We were trying to-"

"How long? _How long_ did it take, Elena?"

Elena tells herself not to panic. That this is Stefan. That he's in there somewhere. She just needs to get through to him.

"Stefan, you've got it wro-"

"_How. Long. _For you to let him bite you? To kiss you?"

"Has he screwed you yet? I hear he's very good at it."

"Stefan-"

He shakes his head. "No."

_"No." _He grabs her jaw, tilting her face towards his as his eyes track their way across every inch of her face. "He can't have you."

She doesn't like the sound of that, and a shot of fear-fueled adrenaline courses through her at the words.

"Stefan, he doesn't... I don't..."

"Don't _lie to me_," he roars, red eyes glistening. The veins around them seem almost black now, and visibly pulse with fury.

Elena can smell blood on his breath.

She can't help but wonder about the last moments of the donor it came from.

About whether they were anything like this.

Stefan straightens. And suddenly, something has changed.

Like a switch has been flipped, Elena can't feel the heat of his anger anymore. It's as if it has receded behind a wall of ice.

His face seems eerily calm, apparently unconcerned, and Elena can't detect any emotion in it at all.

If anything, it makes her more terrified.

He tilts his head at her quizzically. "You know, Elena, in all that time _we_ shared blood, you never offered me your neck," he says almost conversationally. He pauses to finger a lock of hair from her face in a parody of tenderness that makes her cringe.

He lets it fall, leaning in to whisper to her in a secretive tone. "But don't worry sweetheart, I can _fix_ that."

"_Stefan_, no." She says warningly.

Because Elena senses that this isn't going to be any gentle slide of fangs.

Not this time.

"Please Stefan, don't do this." she begs, finding herself desperately looking into his eyes. Looking for something... Something that just isn't there.

Not anymore.

But as she watches, she sees their blood-streaked depths go unfocused. His body heaves into her, dragging her down with him and grating her skin against the rough bark at her back. Elena desperately grips at the tree behind her and fights the urge to scream.

Damon stands in front of her, ignoring Stefan where he now lies, crumpled on the ground at his feet, a collection of vervain darts protruding from his neck.

He leans an arm against the same tree Elena sags against, panting and holding his side. "You OK?"

Elena nods soundlessly.

Damon studies her without speaking for a moment.

"You know he didn't mean that right? It's not him."

"Right. I know. Of course. I know." She's nodding again.

She should really stop that. She must look ridiculous. Like one of those bobble-headed dogs people keep on their dashboards.

So now, as she looks back into his concerned blue eyes, she makes sure to keep her head carefully still.

Not much she can do about the way the rest of her is shaking.

Damon frowns at her, then sighs, reaching with a thumb to brush a tear from her cheek. "Hey."

He moves closer to cradle her face between his hands. "Don't worry Elena, you will get him back."

The smile he gives her is sad. Resigned.

"I promise."

Elena leans into him over the body between their feet as the sky finally breaks.

She knew it was going to rain.


	16. Brotherhood

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

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><p>They're not going home.<p>

Not yet.

It was probably naive of Elena to think that they could. She should have known that it wouldn't be possible. That you can't just steal something from under the nose of an age-old original and expect him to turn the other cheek. But she was still somehow disappointed when Damon told her they aren't going back to Mystic Falls.

She slides into the passenger seat, sad that they are still so far from home, but feeling marginally better now that she's cleaned herself up and changed her shirt. When living under the constant threat of discovery and dismemberment by angry supernatural beings, it's sometimes the little things that keep you from going completely insane.

"So what is this place that we're meeting everyone at?"

Given Klaus's penchant for taking retribution on the friends and family of those who have displeased him, it was decided in the short term the safest thing was to get the whole gang out of Mystic falls while they regroup and consider their options.

"Just somewhere I know we can be safe and out of the way. It used to be run by monks when I knew it."

"We're going to a monastery?"

"An Abbey, to be exact. Though there's no holy people there anymore, I'm afraid."

Elena isn't game to ask what happened to them, but by the half-smirk Damon is throwing in her direction, she can tell he knows exactly what she's thinking.

"_Relax_ Elena, I had nothing to do with the Brotherhood of Hypocrisy's demise. Celibacy just isn't as trendy as it used to be... Not that it was a trend that I ever personally succumbed to." His half-smirk blows into a full wattage scorcher at her look. "Come on, you have to admit it would be an affront to God to waste this body on chastity?"

Elena bites back the retort that he's going to hell either way. She's got more important things on her mind.

"What about..." she looks towards the back of the car.

Stefan is currently out cold in the Camaro's trunk, bundled in chains still stained with Damon's blood.

She'd watched as Damon had shut him in. Unconscious he'd looked... Guileless, innocent somehow. More like the Stefan she used to know, and nothing like the creature they found in Klaus's lair. It was hard, watching his still body disappear into the dark, hearing the clank of metal closing over him.

But that wasn't enough for her to make an argument for putting him in the main cab with them.

"What are we going to do with him, Damon?" she asks in a small voice.

He looks over at her. "There's a cell in the basement. I've got Ric making some modifications, it should be secure by the time we get there."

It's a good, simple, practical answer.

Which doesn't even come close to addressing what she was really asking.

Elena is so caught up in her own thoughts that it takes her a while to notice the silence in the car.

Not all that surprising, since she her distraction has to be the reason for the lull in conversation. When she looks up, she sees Damon is watching her. She wonders how long that's been going on.

"I meant it, Elena, about Stefan. That wasn't him."

Probably a while, then.

"I know Damon, but..." she trails off.

"But?"

"But that doesn't mean that some of it wasn't.. isn't... really the way he feels."

She's not talking about the physical threats.

And when Damon snorts derisively she is sure he knows exactly what she's talking about.

"It's not like you helped with that, Damon," she snaps, though she can't be sure if it's really Damon she's angry at here.

"I"m not apologizing," he says flatly. "We needed to get him out, we got him out. If big bad mass-murdering Stefan still has old pussy Stefan's insecurities, that _really_ isn't my problem."

Is that really what they are going to pass this off as? Stefan's insecurities?

Because, if she's honest, she can't stop thinking about the answer to Stefan's question.

_'How long, Elena? How long did it take... to let him kiss you?'_

_Not even a day, Stefan._

_I didn't even know you were gone yet._

_And I was the one who kissed him._

"Look Elena, _don't worry._ I _know_ how this goes. You two will do your little lovey dovey make up thing, Stefan will go back to his default level of broody melancholy, and all will be as it should be."

He's trying to be reassuring, Elena knows, but she can sense the vein of anger underneath the words. And as she looks at his face, light spilling over the too-carefully careless features, blue eyes not quite hiding the depths of the man behind them, the thought slips out unbidden.

_No, it won't._

She doesn't say it though.

In fact, neither one of them says much for the rest of the drive.

* * *

><p>It's late by the time they reach the Abbey. It's a large stone building surrounded by dark fields. And if she's right, those scraggly plants she sees are grape vines, looking messily unkempt up close but merging into clear-cut lines of gray and black as they fade towards the hills in the night. She wonders if they still make wine here.<p>

There's a permanent sign advising visiting hours and tour times, partly obscured by a hand-written board.

_Closed for Maintenance. _

_Sorry!_

Elena recognizes that large careful writing with its curly lettering (and is that a love heart dotting the exclamation mark?).

"This place is open to the public?" _Great_. Here Damon was, being all mysterious about their destination, when he could have just handed her the brochure.

"Not right now." Damon says carelessly.

"And what about the staff?"

Damon looks over at the make-shift sign, wincing at what he sees. "Caroline should have taken care of that too."

Elena hopes so. Because Damon looks rather conspicuous as he saunters up the entry steps, nonchalantly carting the limp and chain-bound Stefan over a shoulder.

He pauses to push open the heavy wooden doors. "After you."

The inside of the abbey is huge. The room they've entered has towering ceilings, stone gray walls and the center boasts the longest table she's ever seen in her life.

"If things haven't changed, the kitchen's that way," he indicates to the right, "and the sleeping quarters are up those stairs and to the left. The Brotherhood weren't big on creature comforts, so don't waste time looking for the decent bedrooms. There aren't any."

"I can give you a more personal tour later if you'd like, but I have to deal with lover boy first."

"_Speaking of._.." Damon's attention is taken by an approaching figure. "Hey Ric. How's it hanging, buddy?"

"How are you, Elena?" The history teacher-come-vampire hunter bypasses Damon's greeting to focus on her with concerned eyes.

"I'm fine Ric. Really."

"Right." Alaric sounds uncertain as he warily eyes the unmoving body over Damon's shoulder.

"Don't worry," Damon slaps Ric's shoulder. "I just pumped him full of enough vervain to keep a herd of brontosaurus down for the winter. He's not going to move for hours."

Ric looks back, nonplussed. "I'll still feel better when he's not moving from behind some bars. You want to come down to the basement and test out the facilities?"

"You mean Stefan's rehab cell, or the wine cellar I know is _also_ down there?" Damon asks, eyebrows questioning. "OK, party-killer, don't look at me like that. Stefan first. Vino later."

Elena moves to follow them, but is stopped by her name being called from the head of the stairs.

"Elena?"

A blur and a moment later, and Elena finds herself enveloped into a hug of blonde curls and vanilla dream perfume.

"Damon told me what happened, are you OK?" Earnest eyes scan hers as Caroline holds her at arms length.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Elena smiles, "it's great to see you, Care," she says warmly, meaning it. "I missed you."

Caroline beams brightly at her. "It's just me, Ric and Tyler right now, but Bonnie and Jeremy are on their way. They just wanted to round up some books and supplies... whatever they thought we might need. They should be here by morning though, and then everyone will be here." She impulsively hugs Elena again. "I missed you too."

It's funny how, in all this death and tragedy, they have all become so close. Elena has lost so many friends and almost all her family but, in a bittersweet way, it's like she's also gained a new one.

As Caroline pulls back, Elena sees her eyes narrow and the smile drop unexpectedly from her face. "Care, what's wrong?"

Caroline pushes the curtain of Elena's hair away from her neck. "What's this?" Her pretty eyes cloud with confusion, then anger. "I thought Damon said he got to you in time?"

OK, so it seems when Damon told Caroline what happened, he might have skipped a few elements of the story. Although she can see how "and then I bit your best friend a time or two" might not be the easiest thing to slip into a conversation. Especially with a blonde vampire with a known history of veering towards the overdramatic.

"Well?" Caroline plants her fashionable shoes apart and crosses her arms imperiously. "Explain," she demands.

Elena sighs. "It's OK Care, that's... it wasn't Stefan."

And, oddly enough, that doesn't seem to reassure Caroline at all.

"What? Has _Damon_ been chewing on you?" she questions incredulously. She peers closer again until Elena pushes her away self-consciously. "God, Elena. That's more than one set of bite marks. You want to tell me what exactly you've been doing there?"

Frankly? Not really. Elena's tired, and she's dirty, and she's just had possibly the longest day of her entire life.

And, also... She's gotten just a little confused of late, about what exactly it is that she's been doing there.

"I can explain but... It's a really long story Care. Can we _please_ talk about this in the morning?"

Caroline looks like she is going to argue, but as she searches Elena's face her expression softens. "OK Elena."

"But tomorrow," she looks at Elena meaningfully, "you spill."

Yup. Elena can't wait.

"Spill what?"

Elena sighs, fantasizing about the hot shower and warm bed she thinks she may never see again. "Hi Tyler."

"Hey Elena, how are you doing? I heard it's been a bit rough?"

You could say that.

At least Tyler hasn't noticed the bite marks. Actually, his eyes barely skimmed Elena on their way to Caroline. She could have shaved her head and Tyler probably wouldn't have noticed. Thank God for young love.

"Thanks Tyler but I'm fine, really." How many times is she going to have to say that tonight? "Look, I'd really just like to check on the Stefan situation. Do you know how to get to the cellar?"

"Uh..." He looks at Caroline, who shrugs her abdication of responsibility for any of this conversation or its related actions. He looks from her to Elena uncertainly. "...sure. Come on, I'll show you."

"Don't let anyone else bite you." Caroline yells after her.

* * *

><p>The basement is dry and smells faintly of wood. A bare bulb gives limited luminosity to the room below her, and Elena is careful as she navigates the steps downward.<p>

She hears them before she sees them, the low masculine tones and occasional chuckles. As she descends further she makes out a couple of tables, some enormous oak barrels, and rows and rows of bottles extending further than she can see in this light. And there they are, the man and the vampire, leaning casually in front of a cell door, looking for all the world like they could be in just another seedy bar.

"So how is he?"

Damon and Alaric look up, almost guiltily. Elena feels like she's just interrupted boys club.

"I'll just... be upstairs. Let me know if you... need anything else."

Alaric gives a quick backward glance which Damon interprets and responds to by grabbing a bottle from a nearby rack.

"Try this one," he says, winking.

Alaric hesitates, then takes it sheepishly. He pats Elena awkwardly on the shoulder as he passes her on the stairs. "You let me know if you need anything too."

Elena shakes her head when she reaches Damon. "You two are both alcoholics."

Damon shrugs noncommittally.

She looks back to where Alaric disappeared up the stairs "I think the idea of having a conversation with a girl about the boyfriend that just tried to snack on her while blood-crazed out of his mind was a little too much for him." She purses her lips in mock disapproval. "Not very brave for a vampire hunter."

"Nothing to do with it," says Damon dismissively. "Elena, when it comes to women? _All_ men are cowards."

_You're not._ Elena wants to say it, but is worried about where that conversation might lead.

"So? How is he?" She looks in through the bars of the door to where Stefan lies, unconscious on the cold ground. "You couldn't give him a bed?"

"We took all the furniture out. Didn't want him to have any weapons."

"Not that he _needs_ any." Damon adds pointedly.

He hesitates. "Elena... I need you to listen to me. This isn't like last time. He's been immersed in blood for _days_. He's _killed_ people. We don't know how many."

"You need to be careful for the next few days, OK? No coming down here on your own, no sneaking in there to check on him. I know you love him but..." He looks pained, "but you're going to have to have a bit of patience here. _Please_ don't do anything stupid."

"Don't worry Damon, I got that memo this morning."

He looks at her searchingly, pursing his lips and eventually giving her a small nod. "It's going to be... a while... before he wakes up."

Ah, she knows what this is about. Damon isn't going to leave her here on her own here while they wait to see what emerges from this vervain-induced coma. She shakes her head. "You don't need to babysit, Damon. I'm not..." she looks sadly at the lonely-looking figure inside the cell. Yeah, it's going to be a while before he wakes up. And she's realistic enough to know that it's going to take even longer before the real Stefan wakes up.

She sighs. "It's late, and I haven't slept properly in days. And he's going to need me when he- when the old Stefan's back. That's going to work a whole lot better if I'm a functional human being."

Damon is watching her carefully. "I would... agree, wholeheartedly, with that."

"So there's really nothing I can do for him tonight. He's safe down here, and I'll be safe upstairs."

"You don't have to worry about it, or about me, OK?"

"Good," says Damon.

She's not sure why he sounds so uncertain.

* * *

><p>It's not that he doesn't trust her...<p>

OK, so he doesn't trust her.

This morning's events would be enough to teach any ordinary person a lesson, it's true.

It's just unfortunate that there is nothing ordinary about Elena.

So he's not going to let her quiet retreat lull him into a false sense of security. And he's not taking any more chances.

Which explains why he is sitting here, in the silent dark, outside the door of the room she retired to. Watching the corridor wall opposite, staring at the patchwork the rough-textured stones make against smooth grooves of mortar. Listening to her breathe.

He's not leaving her. Not until the monster under her bed (quite literally, two floors under) has been vanquished. Not until it's safe for the fairy princess to emerge again.

Of course, by then the fairy prince will be back, and it will be exit stage left for the monster outside her door.

Because he won't be needed anymore.

He falls into an uneasy sleep, filled with dreams where all the princesses have dark hair and soulful eyes, and the princes are pure-of-heart, green-eyed and brooding.

And the dark-haired jesters stand on the sidelines, mocking on the outside, tortured on the inside, but still doing what they can to keep another's princess happy.

He is woken by the quiet click of a latch drawing back.

He _knew_ it.

By the time Elena swings the door open, Damon is standing in front of her, blocking the doorway.

"Need to use the bathroom?"

He feels a grim satisfaction as he sees the shock of being caught clearly on her face._ Busted._

"I..."

Damon shakes his head. "_Goddammit_ Elena. Can't you just give it a couple of days? Did you not learn anything on our little expedition this morning? Are you _that _blasé about the idea of keeping your head attached to your shoulders that you're ready to walk back in to the den of the lion on your own?"

"Damon, I..."

"No, Elena. _Don't. _Just _don't_." God he hates this feeling. He's almost lost her, too many times.

Too many damn times.

And after every near miss, he gets this same sensation. Like someone is holding a vacuum to his insides, threatening to suck them clean out, and there's nothing he can do about it. And no drug, no pill, no kill can take that feeling away.

He swears, next time he falls in love, he's going for a coward. A nervous, sniveling, agoraphobic coward. Someone who buys their groceries online, gets their excitement through dimestore novels and never leaves the safety of their bedroom.

Next time._ Ha._ Good one Salvatore.

"I wasn't coming to find Stefan." Elena says quietly.

And it's possible that time stops completely for a moment.

_Coming?_

And then Damon notices how small and alone she looks in her pink camisole and candy stripe shorts. How large and round her eyes are. Deep brown pools that could swallow him whole.

He could drown in them and never even notice he was dying.

And he realizes that she's scared.

It's enough to make him want to never let her back into his brother's arms, sober or not.

_Uh-oh._

He is _so_ screwed.

"I tried Damon, I really did. And I'm so damn tired, but..." she gives a tiny, defeated shrug.

"I just can't seem to close my eyes," she whispers.

"Hey," he lifts her chin with a finger, "do you really think I'd be taking any risks with him? With you?" It takes everything he has to put out a self-assured smile. But it's hard when she's standing there like she's going to break in front of him.

"You saw the vervain, the chains, the maximum security cell I had Ric set up in the basement. Why do you think I'm here barricading your doorway, making sure you don't undo the elaborate efforts I've made to keep you safe, huh?"

"I know, Damon. I keep telling myself that. And I know it'll be ok. I just..."

Then she shakes her head. Gives him a brittle smile. "I'm sorry, I'll be fine, I shouldn't have..."

"Shouldn't have what, Elena? Been a little thrown by the fact that your boyfriend tried to... Almost..." Damon stops. Closes his eyes for a moment. "He could have really hurt you today."

"No, that's wrong." Damon corrects himself.

"He _did_ hurt you, Elena."

There's a little twitch in her downturned lips. Damon feels an answering spasm somewhere in the center of his chest.

And he fights the urge to take her in his own arms right there and then.

Because if he does, he's pretty sure he's never letting her go.

Instead he moves as close as he dares, and restricts himself to stroking one shiny lock of hair as he tucks it behind her ear. "I won't let anything happen to you. "

"I know." She's frowning. "That's why..."

Tentatively, she takes his hand and stares down at it. "Do you think you could maybe stay..." Her uncertain gaze looks back up at his. "Just for a while?"

And even if he didn't already want to do that more than anything in the world, for those vulnerable, shining eyes he would pull out his spleen and give it to her if she asked.

So when she climbs back into bed, he sits by her, keeping hold of her hand until her breathing calms and her eyes close.

"Damon?"

"I'm here."

"I know that." He hears the underlying mirth in her voice with relief. She must be starting to feel better.

"You don't have to sit there all night."

"Oh sure, well if you-"

But she tugs at his arm and moves over slightly on the tiny bed.

_Oh._

He slips in beside her as she lays an arm on his chest and her head on his shoulder. And as she sleeps, he stares at the ceiling.

And he's the one who doesn't close his eyes all night.

Yup.

_Screwed._


	17. Hungry Eyes

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**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

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><p>"You've got to drink something."<p>

It's déjà vu, all over again. A tiny room, a dirt floor, and a starving, bedraggled vampire with hollow, aching eyes.

Stefan shuts them in obvious pain, but ignores the glass in front of him.

She hates seeing him like this.

It never gets any easier.

"You should have left me there."

At least he's talking now.

For the first few days, he'd been incoherent. But not silent. No, instead of _talking_ he had snarled, and snapped, and roared, bucking against his chains like a rodeo bull, until Elena had been afraid they'd snap. But between Ric's reinforcements and Damon's generous doses of vervain, the bonds had held, and their captive had remained secure.

"Stefan, you know we couldn't have left you."

Truth be known, she almost preferred that feral, spirited monster to the broken vampire in front of her now. The one that sits, shoulders hunched and back against the wall. Free of the chains, but looking more trapped than ever.

"Then you should have killed me."

Elena should be expecting that, really, yet it still shocks her.

"Stefan, don't _say_ that. You don't mean it."

"You know I do." And she sees in his eyes that he really does.

Oh no. Not again.

_We don't have time for this_. Elena bites her lip guiltily as the thought flashes through her mind.

But as much as she hates this, and as much as she feels for Stefan's pain, the truth is they _have_ wasted too much time here. Time, waiting for the blood to pass out of his system. Time for the monster to retreat far enough for Damon's satisfaction.

The elder Salvatore is close, of course. He's never far away. Elena can almost feel him on the other side of the wall. She imagines him standing there, arms crossed, eyes narrowed and expression grim.

She's lucky he let her in here alone. That he let her in here at all.

It's the first time she's been allowed inside since Stefan was incarcerated. Not that she blames Damon for that. And not that _that_ had stopped her from stubbornly taking her post right on the other side of the door when Stefan first came to.

To be honest, she doesn't know how much of that was about Stefan, and how much it was about proving a point (to whom exactly, she couldn't say)... But in any case, it hardly mattered. Because she soon realized that there was more than one furious, snarling vampire in the basement. And so she found another, more urgent reason to stay.

_Someone_ had to make sure Damon wasn't going to kill his brother.

He's been as protective as ever. Worse, in fact. More aggressive, more on edge, and more uncommunicative than she's ever seen him.

Well, OK, so he's talked to Ric, and Jeremy, Caroline even. Hell, he's even spoken to _Bonnie_ on matters of magical strategy. So basically, he's been talking to everyone except...

Elena.

She's not sure what she's done wrong, exactly. Except -

Except that's a lie, isn't it? Because she knows exactly when it started...

It's been this way since they brought Stefan back.

_Liar. Try again._

More specifically?

It's been this way since the night she asked him to stay.

So that would be her mistake.

Elena knows she shouldn't have gone looking for him. But she'd been tired. And terrified. And lost. And Damon had made it OK, just like she knew he would.

And the next day she'd woken alone, by a pillow suspiciously warm to the touch, still lingering with scents she recognized well by now - whiskey, and leather, and Damon Salvatore.

And he's been avoiding her, in his own ever-present, ever-vigilant way, ever since.

"He's angry with me." Stefan breaks her from her reverie, following the inadvertent direction of her gaze. "Because of what I did to you."

And what's he angry with Elena for?

Maybe she'd asked for more than she had a right to.

_Wouldn't be the first time, would it, Elena?_

"He's right to be angry. What I did to you was unforgivable."

"Stefan, I forgive you-"

"I don't _want_ to be forgiven. I don't _deserve _forgiveness."

He leans his head back against the stone wall, looking towards the cobwebbed ceiling in quiet desolation. "I wasn't meant to come back. _Ever_."

Elena feels a dull thud in her chest. Well, that's one question answered, at least. Because somewhere at the back of her mind, Elena had wondered... Wondered whether he'd originally meant this as part of a greater plan, to save Damon's life until a better opportunity - another, more acceptable alternative - had presented itself. Whether he'd really been willing to give up everything, forever.

Willing to give up _her_ forever.

And she doesn't even mean to say it, not really.

It just comes out.

"You left me."

She's been so busy. The chase, the capture, the ripper rehab...

It never really registered before.

It never had the chance.

"You didn't even say goodbye, Stefan."

"Elena, I _couldn't_. Don't you see? If I even tried..." Green eyes penetrate hers, begging for understanding. " I never could have gone through with it."

Her frustration evaporates, though the heaviness in her heart remains. "I understand, Stefan, I do." She reaches out to clasp his knee, and tries not to feel disappointed when he flinches away.

"How can you, Elena? How can you even touch me after what I've done?"

"It doesn't change anything Stefan. It doesn't change who you are."

"No, it doesn't. But now you _know_ who I am. How can I even look you in the eye?"

Elena gently leans over and pulls his chin towards her until his eyes are level with hers. "Just like this."

She brushes the hair out of his forehead and places a gentle kiss on it before kneeling on her haunches in front of him.

"I can't imagine how you feel Stefan, but you need to know I'm here for you. We're _all_ here for you. I know it might not seem like it right now.." She looks to where they both know Damon stands, doubtless listening to every word, "but we are."

"You should have seen what he went through, Stefan, to bring you back."

"Well it was all for _nothing_." Stefan snorts in frustration. "Klaus is going to come after all of you now, you know that. He's not going to be forgiving anybody."

Elena grips his hands determinedly.

"We've got a plan for that."

Damon takes that as the cue to make his appearance, leaning against the doorway to cross one leg carelessly over the other and gaze dispassionately at the two of them crouched in the dirt.

"You've got a plan to kill an invincible hybrid?" Stefan looks up, choosing to aim the sarcasm of his question at his older brother.

"Maybe we don't have to," Damon replies coolly.

The two brothers stare at each other wordlessly for a long moment. Elena doesn't understand the silent exchange, but it is Stefan who breaks it first.

"So what's your plan B, Damon? Running, tail between our legs? Is that why we're not in Mystic Falls? We're going to skip town like Katherine did and spend the next millennium on the lam?"

"Nope." Damon says enigmatically.

When it becomes clear Damon isn't going to elaborate, Elena steps in. "We're going to lock him up instead."

"This one of your crazy ideas, Damon?"

"Tyler's, actually. All that enforced monthly incarceration must have left the boy inspired."

"You honestly think you can find some kind of... what... cage?… that's strong enough to keep an original from breaking out, Damon?" Stefan shakes his head, looking at both of them incredulously. "_This_ is your master plan?"

"Well, it's not going to be any ordinary cage. It'll be mystically turbo-charged." Damon waggles his fingers abracadabra-style. "Bonnie's been working on it. You should see her, candles, chants, it's just like a tantric orgy, minus all the fun and the naked people."

"She's been doing it for days, Stefan. " Elena interjects. "She's trying to gradually transfer all the power she has left from the dead witches into an enchantment she found in one of the Martin grimoires. She thinks this might really work."

"_Might?_ What if it _doesn't_?"

"What, we're going to start looking for guarantees now?" Damon snaps.

Elena ignores Damon to focus on Stefan. "We're going to have one chance, we have to make it count."

"We could really use your help, you know Klaus better than any of us, now. You know how he travels, what his habits are, you can help."

"Elena..." Stefan shakes his head. "I'm no use to anyone right now. What happened while I was with Klaus..." he grimaces and turns away. "It's hazy at best, I don't know how much I can even remember." His brow furrows. "The truth is, I don't want to remember."

Neither does Elena, to be honest. But if she can face Stefan at his worst, surely he can do the same if it might help them take Klaus down.

Stefan shakes his head desolately at her. "I can't think about it. I just can't."

"I'm sorry Elena, I can't help you."

Disappointment washes over her. But Elena knew this wasn't going to be easy. She sighs. "Stefan-"

"_Elena_." Damon interrupts shortly, still looking at his younger brother, "I think you should go get some bunny blood for my brother."

Irritated, Elena holds out the still full glass in demonstration "Damon, I've already-"

Damon pulls it from her grasp and downs it one gulp. He gags in disgust before passing the empty glass back to her.

"Looks like you're all out."

Damon looks at her for the first time today, and speaks to her very deliberately. "Go and get some blood for my brother, _Elena_."

Elena looks from one Salvatore to the other. Damon stands immutable while Stefan continues to stare broodingly at him.

_Brothers._ Ugh.

"_Fine_." She turns on her heel and walks out.

* * *

><p><em>God<em> his brother is _filthy_.

His clothes are bedraggled and his hair is a tousled mess that will take a salon of styling product to restore to its formal anal-retentive glory.

But bad hair and poor hygiene aside, it's all the self-recriminative wallowing that Damon finds most distasteful.

And maybe it wouldn't make him feel quite so bad, if it wasn't for that fact that every time he looks at him he is reminded that this, _this_ is apparently the better option. The better man. The better vampire.

Better than him.

Still, Damon waits until he hears Elena pass the last step and turn down the corridor before turning on the pathetic excuse for a vampire at his feet.

"Will you just get _over_ yourself already."

"_What_?"

And baby bro looks genuinely confused. And wounded. Reproachful that his big, mean, baddie brother would dare encroach on his mission of martyrdom.

"I said, get over yourself. So you've killed a few people. We've all done it. People live, people die."

"Death is _far_ from the most tragic thing about life, Stefan."

And there they are, the soulful eyes and furrowed brow that always brings Elena to her ever-compassionate knees.

Which is exactly why Damon made her leave.

"You had no right to do this, Damon. I'd accepted this. It was my choice."

"No, Stefan, _you_ had no right. Who were you to choose your life over mine? And all for what, some misguided idea of _fixing_ things?"

Damon rounds on his little brother, the pent up frustration of the last week bubbling out in his words. "I never gave you permission to save my life by turning me the first time, and I sure as hell didn't give you permission to keep it going by you giving your life up for mine when I'd chosen to accept my own death. "

"So _sorry_, Stefan, but you don't get to whine about your right to decide anything."

In a swift movement he yanks Stefan to his feet and pushes him against the wall behind him. "_Here_ are your choices."

"You can either stay here and wail about the unfairness of us meddling with your stupid screwed up plan, _or_ you can help us help us deal with the consequences of all our mistakes."

"You don't understand, Damon-"

'No Stefan, _you_ don't understand."

Sometimes, his brother can be such an idiot. He has everything. _Everything,_ and still he would sit here, in the dark, feeling sorry for himself for all eternity if Damon let him.

"You're a fool," he growls, "You've got a girl out there who loves you. God knows why. But she does."

"And if you don't wise up, you're going to lose her."

Look at him. Green, bleary eyes that, even now, are filled with that far-away-look of desperation that tells Damon he's far too busy ruminating on all the innocents he's brutalized over the past days to concern himself with the here and now.

Which is too bad, really, because the here and now is getting to be a little bit on the precarious side, and they could do with all the help they could get.

"Actually, you know what?" Damon lets Stefan go to slump against the brickwork.

"_I'm_ the one who's the fool."

Stefan's expression is guarded as he looks back at him.

"To think, here I've been holding off because I genuinely thought that you were the better man, the more deserving brother." Damon shakes his head. "You know, little bro, of late I'm having grave doubts about that."

He sees a light in his eyes flicker into life. "She'd never have you."

"No? You sure about that? Because blood-lusty Stefan seemed to have something of a difference of opinion on that."

"Oh, but that's right, I'm forgetting... I'll never have her... _respect_, was it? Yes, I remember."

"But what if..." Damon purses his lips, as if in thought, "what if I don't actually _need_ her respect."

Damon's grin is partly genuine as he sees the irritation that crosses his brother's features in response to his remark.

And Elena's back. And listening.

He can feel her. Hovering just by the door way, perhaps out of some misguided politeness. Maybe she's assumed from his comments that he doesn't actually know that she's there. Except that would suggest that she doesn't know him _at all_.

So he ignores her, leaning back and regarding Stefan coolly. "She was going to turn for me, you know."

"That's not true." Stefan's denial is immediate, and really rather gratifying.

"Actually, it's completely true."

"As a matter of fact, it was _really_ hard to talk her out of it-"

"Damon!"

Elena busts into the room, all lady-like outrage on behalf of her slighted beau.

So, no taunting Romeo then. _Apparently_ that's only allowed to go in the one direction around here.

"Is that true?" Stefan demands of her incredulously. And Damon hopes Elena is picking up the hint of accusation he's hearing in his brother's tone.

"Stefan!"

Yup, you bet she is. Damon doesn't bother trying to suppress his self-indulgent grin.

"So it's _not_ true then?"

"Yes Stefan, it is, but obviously it was for a good reason."

"What, a better reason than keeping you from _dying_ in the doppelganger sacrifice?"

"That was different."

"_How_ was that different?"

"This was my decision to make. He was going to _die_, Stefan. Look what _you_ gave up so that he wouldn't die."

"Yes, but he's my _brother_ Elena."

"And he's my _friend_."

Friend. Ugh. It's enough to make a vampire want to say something wildly inappropriate just to alleviate the mind-numbing vanilla banality of it all.

"Hey, come on man, it's no big deal. Honestly, I was disappointed that's all she was offering. I thought I might at least get a goodbye kiss out of it, you know, seeing as I was dying and all."

Elena gives him a look of guilty surprise. Well, OK, so it was a childish dig, but he didn't really think she'd still be whipping herself over that _one_ time she slipped up and kissed the stable boy by mistake.

It's not like she'd let that happen again, right?

Sadly, Saint Stefan seems to have missed their little exchange.

"I'm sorry Elena.. I shouldn't have... I'm still a bit..." Stefan winces apologetically, looking at her with those puppy dog eyes that no woman alive seems able to turn away from.

And Elena, true to form, slides in right next to him, putting a comforting arm around him and looking at Damon with reproach.

"It's ok Stefan. Damon's just being... himself."

Yeah, this is Damon, doing what he does best. Getting everyone offside, giving them a common enemy to bond over. Reminding them whose side they're on, after all.

He gets in close. Close to his brother, and closer to his brother's girlfriend, purposefully invading her personal space, because that's something else that he's good at.

"That be as it may, I meant what I said. Screw up again, little bro. and know this. All bets are off." He narrows his eyes at Elena lasciviously, because he knows it will piss them both off.

He stands swiftly, leaving his brother irritated and Elena flushed.

"Have a good day, brother."

Elena scowls at him with frustration.

_You're welcome_, he mouths at her.

And then he walks out.

* * *

><p>Elena watches as Damon saunters out of the cell with as much attitude as he entered.<p>

"Don't listen to him. He was just trying to rile you up."

Stefan looks at his brother's retreating figure before shaking his head and turning back to her.

"I'm sorry Elena." He looks rueful. "I was so caught up in my own pain, my own plan I… It was selfish. I see that now."

"It's OK Stefan, I understand." She tries to smile encouragingly, and Stefan seems to buy it, smiling shyly and wrapping a hand around her neck to pull her forehead to his.

This time she pulls back, and he looks at her questioningly.

"Is something wrong?"

_You left me._

"No, of course not. We're just… I'm just worried. We're going to take on Klaus. We can't… get distracted.."

"Of course, Elena." Stefan smiles, warm and loving, the Stefan of old. "I'm sorry about before, about accusing you of…" Stefan looks down. "I know you care about my brother. We both do."

Elena looks back out the door, but Damon's form is long gone.

"Did you really tell him that he'd never have my respect, Stefan?"

She can tell by the self-conscious flush of his face that it's true.

"Why would you say that?"

"Elena, he's my brother. And you know what he's like. He pushes people's buttons."

"It doesn't matter what I tell myself, sometimes he just…" Stefan shakes his head, "he gets to me. I can't help it."

_I know what you mean._

"But you're right. Whatever you did, or almost did," Stefan traces the almost-healed nicks on her neck, "I should have known you wouldn't have considered it lightly. I should have trusted you."

"Stefan, don't…" Elena shakes her head, the memories he's bringing up are not helping her get through this conversation.. "Let's not worry about that right now. The important thing is to get Klaus out of our lives, out of _all_ our lives, then we can deal with the rest."

A flicker of unease crosses his face at his words. "The rest?" he says warily.

"Stefan, you gave us up. I know you had your reasons. _Good_ reasons." Elena squeezes his hand, "but you can't just, I can't just… jump back in where you left me."

"And I can't think about that… Can't think about anything, until we take care of Klaus."

"Are you with us?"

Stefan smiles at her, but the smile is sad.

"Of course I'm with you. I promise, from here on in I'm here for you. Whatever it takes."


	18. Unholy Men

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

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><p>He used to come here looking for answers.<p>

The questions had been different then. He'd still been young, as vampires go. Grappling with good versus evil. What were they, what did they mean, what was he? He'd come to spend time with these men of God, thinking they must know.

What he'd found was men dealing with the same challenges, the same struggles as anyone else. Bickering over the same petty irritations, finding delight in the same simple pleasures. Before sermons and after prayer vigils, these brothers fought and laughed and cried together just as any other humans might. The only difference they had was faith.

Faith. Damon snorts, thinking of it now. An illusory haven for the foolish and the naive, and he is neither.

Though he had tried to understand it for a time, that summer, before he'd given up his grip on humanity - between the prayers, the theological argument and copious barrels of wine.

He'd never succeeded. To Damon, God was not here. Had never been here. To the brothers, he always had. Always would be. Was here right now. In this moment, in this valley. In the mountains, the trees, the grass beneath him. Damon sees the enormous mounds of earth looming dark against the night sky. He sees the leaves, the papery trunks. The greyish green of the grass blades in the dark. What did they see that he can't?

Nothing. That's what. There_ is _nothing else.

Anyway, fuck this existential wallowing. It got him nowhere then. It gets him nowhere now. Except drunk, usually, but he's left his alcoholic crutch behind he fled so fast tonight.

Yup. _Fled_. The big bad of evil scuttled away as if he could escape his situation, like a scared little boy who shuts his eyes, plugs his fingers in his ears and hums a tune to block out reality.

But never for long.

He hears her, of course, long before she approaches. Before she sits carefully beside him, as if she doesn't want to disturb him, as if he can't hear every blade of grass that bends under her weight. Although, if she _really_ didn't want to disturb him, she wouldn't have come, would she? Then again, that particular die was cast the day they met. Elena was born, Damon was disturbed and they all lived unhappily ever after.

And he's a fool. Because he came here to escape her. She is, quite literally, the last person he wants to see. Yet he can't help the warmth that floods his chest, has to slam down the euphoria that hits at the sight of her. It's a reflex. Nothing but a dangerous, intoxicating, uncontrollable reaction to her presence. And besides, he knows what comes next. The fall. That's the part he dreads. So as quickly as he looks at her, he looks away again, pretending an interest in an American Elm and trying to pull himself together.

"Damon?"

She sounds tentative. And she's not happy. Of course, he expected that. Actually, he expected her to be angry after the stunt he pulled with Stefan. He was happy for her to be angry. Let her be. He is too.

"That's the last time."

He doesn't realize until the words come out of his mouth that they're true. That he'd even been thinking them.

"Damon?"

No, she's not happy. But she's not angry either. It's something else, and Damon tries to tell himself to leave it be. That he doesn't care. Let her go back to Stefan, let him fix whatever's upsetting her tonight. It's the least his brother can do after the shit he went through to drag him back.

"Damon?" He ignores the tug at his jacket sleeve. "What's the last time?" Her tone's more urgent now, more intense. Enough that he can recognize the feeling he couldn't put his finger on before. She's afraid of something. Sad and afraid, and he doesn't like it. But so what? He doesn't like a lot of things. Sometimes you just have to get used to that.

Case in point...

"That's the last time I help you two mend your broken love story."

"Oh." Her body sags in... relief? "OK."

And he shouldn't feel hurt at that. What else did he expect, really? An apology? Regret? What? He must not have been quick enough to hide his disappointment, because he sees a look of guilt cross her features, and then she opens her mouth. He doesn't need to hear her pity so he gets in first.

"What are you doing here, Elena?" Besides indulging in her favorite screwing-with-Damon side project. "How did you even find me?" It's a good question, now he comes to think of it. They're a long way from the Abbey, she didn't stumble on him by accident.

"Caroline." Elena admits, almost guiltily. Ah, Vampire Barbie must have used her newly acquired super snoop powers.

"What a brilliant idea that was," he ponders aloud, "giving vampire blood to the biggest gossip in Mystic Falls."

"Your brilliant idea." Elena teases, and she smiles for a moment. But he's not smiling, and it soon drops from her face. Don't feel guilty, Damon. Don't be a pussy. Just wait her out. She'll give up eventually. And then she'll go, and you'll be back in peaceful solitude with the mountains and the trees and your godless existence.

"You left so fast after everything with Stefan..." Elena falters. "I wanted to make sure you were OK."

"I'm fine," he says shortly. They both know it's a lie, but who cares. He jumps to his feet, forcing an end to the cozy seated intimacy. "You can go now."

"No." Elena clambers to stand beside him on colt-like legs. "Damon, you've barely been speaking to me, and now... I know something's wrong. I don't understand." And it's obvious she doesn't, her big black eyes reflecting confusion into the night. "After everything we've been through this past week - this past year - why won't you talk to me about it? About anything? Instead you run off to some dark corner of the forest on your own. Why are you all the way out here?"

He knows he shouldn't talk.

Don't tell her what you're thinking, Damon.

Don't give her anything.

If you don't give her anything, she can't pry into it, obsess over it, feel guilty over it. Or throw it away.

But this is Elena, and he is Damon, and he will always spill over, and when he does it will be into her.

"After everything we've _been through_?"

"I've held you in your sleep, watched you threaten to die for me - I've tasted you, Elena, because you _asked me to_." And what's more, he'd felt it, out by the hunting lodge -

Her surrender.

It was his. For him. Belonged to him, for one shining, exquisite moment before Stefan, quite literally, tore her from him.

"And now it's not enough that I play Cupid, you want me to stay around to watch the make up? After _everything we've been through_, I didn't want to see it, Elena. I didn't want to _hear_ it. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

It's not. He can see it in her face. In the downturn of the slightly parted lips. The eyes big and wide but understanding this time.

"Damon..." She starts. Stops. Tries again. "I didn't - we didn't..."

"Just a matter of time then." It's a statement of fact, and she doesn't argue. Just stands there, looking hesitant and unsure until she looks at the ground and he can't tell what she's thinking at all.

"Elena. _Go_. Go back to my brother, finish the little reunion we worked so hard to make happen. Take your spoils. For Godsake, stop _pestering_ me."

"No." She looks back up at him, unsteady but defiant. "Stop pushing me away. I'm not leaving."

Damon shakes his head. "You're so like my brother. Always wanting to fix everything. But you can't. Because some of the things you want to fix? They aren't actually broken. They just ...are. The sooner you learn to accept that, the better."

"I don't think you're broken, Damon."

Which is bullshit.

"Oh come on Elena, why don't you just admit it? I hurt the people I care about. I kill the people I don't. I have screwed up your life too many times to count, and I've made no attempt to hide the fact that I'm in love with the love of my brother's life."

She flinches at that, guilt and confusion on her face.

"It's not going to change, Elena. Even if I rid the world of originals, take out every being that has ever entertained the thought of harming you, I'll still be me. As long as I'm here I'm never going to stop doing stupid things. I'm never going to stop hurting the people I love. And you're never going to stop being one of them."

"If you weren't around to do the stupid thing, Damon, I'd be dead. And your brother would still be killing people as some hybrid's protege."

"If it wasn't for me Stefan wouldn't have been there."

"Come on Damon, Klaus had plans for Stefan from the beginning. If he hadn't used your werewolf bite, he would have found some other way. And you know it." She pulls his hands to her, and like the love-whipped fool he is, he lets her. "We never could have made it this far without you. _I_ never could have made it this far without you."

"I don't think you're broken Damon. You're impulsive, and you're reckless. But you're also fearless, and passionate, and loyal, and... and Stefan was wrong. He was wrong to tell you you don't have my respect."

"It's OK, Elena" he sighs heavily. "I get it. I have your respect. And your gratitude. And your... friendship. I _know_." And it should mean something, coming from this girl who is all that is good and right in the world (funny, a lesson the monks couldn't teach him a teenage girl could). And the truth is it will mean something, at some other moment. In this moment though, it's just not enough. He squeezes the hands that rest against his. And then he lets them go.

"You are my friend, Damon." Oh no, not those shiny eyes, that cracking voice. He can feel it, the urge to take it back, to take it all back. To lie, tell her he doesn't care. That she can screw the whole Mystic Falls football team, and he'll be right there for her, playing wingman and handing out the prophylactics.

"Elena, it's fine. It's _great_. Really." Because he really does need her to go and get out of here, before the dam he's sensing in her breaks and he really screws everything up.

"It's not _fine_. Stefan's not the only one who was wrong. I - I've relied on you. Taken you for granted. I've just assumed you'd be there for me even when I didn't deserve it, when I didn't ask for it. Because I didn't have to ask. You just always were. Always are." She sniffs a little and, fuck it, it's enough for him to ignore that she basically just called him out for being a pathetic lovelorn twit who won't leave even when he's not wanted. Well, he's tried, hasn't he? Isn't that what he's doing now? Trying to give them a little distance?

For purely selfish reasons, sure, but it still counts.

"I've been my worst with you, Damon. Not because it was fair, but because I knew you could take it. You would take it. You'd take it all and save me anyway, and the truth is, I don't know what I would have done without you these past few weeks."

So what? That was last week. This is today. And it's over, right? Because Stefan is back. Even if she's not back with him yet. Even if Damon just doesn't know, this time, quite how he's going to let her go.

Which is the worst kind of joke. Because they both know she was never his to begin with.

And he still doesn't know what this is, exactly. An apology? A goodbye? The latter would be better, he tells himself, even as his gut recoils at the thought.

Either way he has to know.

"What are you trying to say, Elena?"

She sighs. She seems nervous again, fidgeting with the edge of her jacket. It's not a good sign. She wouldn't be nervous about an apology - she's been doling out those on behalf of herself, of others, of all the lost damned souls in the world, ever since he's known her.

And yet, though her eyes still glisten, she smiles tremulously, bravely at him through the tears.

"I'm trying - if you'll let me - to say thank you."

She raises on her tiptoes, curling one hand around the collar of his jacket, steadying the other carefully against the wall of his chest, like an uncertain toddler about to take her first steps.

And he still doesn't get it.

Not until she leans into him gently, carefully, lips light and soft against his.

They taste of earth and jasmine and rain.

And faith.

"Thank you," she breathes against his cheek, and when she pulls away, he thinks she takes his breath with her.

Maybe God is here after all.

* * *

><p>Caroline snorts in derision. These shoes were not made for hiking.<p>

As if she hasn't done enough already, tracking down Captain Dick because Elena was worried about him (Seriously. Worried about _Damon_. A man who must have more enemies than Hitler and has still managed to survive into his second century does _not_ need the concern of someone of Elena's ilk). Then she had to cover for Elena when people noticed she was gone. Which meant, of course, that she had to offer to go fetch Damon herself (and didn't that raise a few eyebrows).

She might not have bothered but for Stefan. He looked so forlorn, so lost, and more than a little sad. But not stupid. Caroline can't be entirely sure about his ex though. Elena, God bless her soul - the sweetest girl Caroline knows, and she really does love her to death - but you have to wonder if she'll be the last to get it.

The moment she reaches the clearing, she feels that something's up.

Damon and Elena are standing far closer than they ought to be. Which, OK, is really nothing unusual.

What is unusual is that Damon doesn't seem to know she's here.

No one sneaks up on Damon. Especially not a newbie vamp stumbling in on kitten heels.

He's staring at her friend, those big blues (so the dick has nice eyes) boring into Elena like she holds the answer to the cure for cancer. Or, you know, something that Damon would actually care about.

"Elena?" He speaks softly, tentatively, and Caroline hears the question in his tone. The vulnerability. It throws her for a moment. This a Damon Caroline doesn't know, and she pauses just inside the tree line almost in spite of herself.

Elena is looking back at him, with that look that tells you her heart size is far too big for her tiny frame. With a tug at her own heart strings, Caroline realizes her friend's been crying, and recently. Through sharpened vision she sees lashes spiked together in triangles and a fading track of salt water glinting in the moonlight. She still looks beautiful though (which, by the way, is completely unfair - when Caroline cries her nose goes red, her eyes go puffy and mascara ends up everywhere).

If Damon's done something to hurt her (again) Caroline is going to kill him. Or, at the very least, vervain his entire cabinet of good liquor. She knows where it is now.

She steps resolutely into the clearing. "Elena."

Elena's head turns to her as Damon looks up, his face carefully blank, "Not a good time, Blondie."

Caroline ignores him, looking to Elena instead. Elena blinks back, looking unsteady and vulnerable, and Caroline turns to glare at Damon accusingly.

Damon returns her stare, unmoved. Right, she forgot. That's how everyone always looks at him.

"Well, if it's _convenient,_" she enunciates carefully, "I came to tell you that the weapon's ready. Everyone's meeting to discuss the final arrangements." Everyone but you, she silently adds, having your little moonlit tryst in the middle of _nowhere,_ while everyone else is busy writing the 'Take Down Klaus' plan that will likely kill them all.

"That is, if you can be bothered to join us," she adds pointedly for Damon's benefit. _Not a good time? F_or her to hike miles over hill and dale for them? In _heels_, no less. No appreciation. Whatsoever. She raises her eyebrows at him and thinks she catches a barely perceptible nod in acknowledgment.

Elena and Damon exchange a look, and the elder vampire turns business-like. "So what are we doing dawdling around her then? Let's go."

Caroline sighs noisily, turning back to the path she just came from. Damon pauses to look down.

"Assuming you can make it in those ridiculous shoes."

See?_ Dick._


	19. Cross to Bear

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**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

* * *

><p>"It's bit kitsch, don't you think?"<p>

Damon is bent over the device they have all come to see. Two segments of thick gnarled vines, twisting over each other and intersecting about a knotted polished center. Damon's fingers trace the rectangular groove which is the only sign that something more is hidden at their nexus.

"Are we really going to take Klaus down with a crucifix? Maybe he'll laugh himself to death." Damon mutters.

"The vehicle is unimportant. It's the magic that's important." Bonnie says impatiently. "The housing is just there to serve a function. I was lucky I had Ric here to create it."

"Err... Sorry buddy, what I meant to say was - lovely craftsmanship. It's got that real renaissance feel," Damon smirks. He lifts the weapon off the table, taking the time to respectfully weigh it in his hands. "Although I have to say, I do feel suddenly more confident in its operation knowing it's an Alaric Saltzman special."

Elena's pretty sure that Ric's amused grin has just turned slightly bashful at the genuine compliment. He steps to Damon's side to further showcase his creation.

"There's an internal spring mechanism," Ric explains. "When you depress the segment inset in its center, it combines the ingredients inside the weapon, which sets off the..." Ric looks at Bonnie questioningly, "I'd call it a chemical reaction, but we aren't exactly talking science here."

"I don't care what it's called just as long as works."

"You'll only get one shot," Ric warns. "But you have to get close, Damon."

"How close?" Damon asks, turning the weapon over in his hands.

"There needs to be physical contact." Bonnie tells him.

"Oh well, did it once. Can't be too hard to do again. "

Elena, who saw the results of Damon's last "physical contact" with Klaus first-hand, doesn't much like the sound of this. Still, that was Damon, alone, being taken by surprise. This time they're a team, right? Three vampires, a powerful witch, a werewolf, and a handful of very motivated human beings. And this time they actually have a plan. Sort of. She allows herself to feel cautiously optimistic for the first time in days.

"So that's all there is to it? Get in close, don't miss, press the button. Are you sure it will do the job, Judgy?"

"It will when I'm done with it."

"When? If you're not done," Damon points the weapon at Bonnie impatiently, "then what are we all doing here?"

Admittedly, Elena had been wondering the same thing, but she nonetheless jumps to Bonnie's defense.

"Give her a break, Damon. Can't you see she's exhausted?"

And it's clear that she is. There are shadows under the witch's eyes and her skin, usually a glowing brown, is dulled and gray. The past few days have clearly taken a toll. "Are you sure you're okay to finish this, Bonnie? I don't want you to hurt yourself."

Bonnie waves her concerns away.

"I'm fine, Elena. I just need a couple of extra ingredients." She takes the weapon from Damon's hand as she returns his look with her own imperious gaze. "_That's_ why you're here. Do you still have the werewolf hairs you found with the talisman?"

By way of answer, Damon pulls the folded bill from inside his jacket and pushes it across the table.

"What are those for?" Caroline asks, gripping Tyler's arm as she watches Bonnie unfold the bill and transfer the hairs to a well-worn mortar.

"Once the weapon is activated, it needs to be targeted. The enchantment on the weapon is extremely powerful - powerful enough to take down an original - but it it needs direction."

Ric furrows his brow. "Kind of like shaping the charge for an explosion, you mean?"

"Yes," Bonnie nods in agreement. "Exactly like that. To achieve that, I need to target the spell to Klaus."

"Klaus is a werevamp." Bonnie goes on, "The targeting spell requires both elements of his nature to be represented to encompass his hybrid self. These werewolf hairs signify his werewolf side, but he's part vampire too. I'll need something else for that."

"Well I'm sorry, I didn't pause to extract his fangs while he had me tied up and tortured," Damon injects sarcastically.

"It just needs the blood of a vampire Damon. Since you've recently had Klaus's blood in your system, you're the ideal donor."

"And that will work? You're a little new at the spell to start recipe substitutions, don't you think?"

"Yes, it will work. I know what I'm doing, Damon." And though she looks tired, Bonnie looks confident. And determined.

Bonnie and Damon stare at each other, light blue eyes against deep jade green, and Elena watches them both uneasily. The reluctant truce between the witch and the vampire is fragile at best, and she is well aware that at any given moment it could come crashing down. It's a relationship best maintained from a distance, and the forced proximity of the last few days is far from ideal for witch/vamp relations.

Seconds pass, Elena becomes almost certain that Damon is going to refuse. But instead, he finally puts a wrist to his mouth, recklessly tearing at the underside and extending it to Bonnie in a single fluid movement.

Bonnie holds the mortar carefully under his offering, intent on collecting the red droplets that are already beginning to slow.

"Is that it?" asks Damon sardonically, his wrist rapidly healing above the bowl.

"Yes, that's _it,_" Bonnie replies curtly.

"How long will it take?"

"I'll finish the targeting spell tonight."

"And you can do that? Without hurting yourself?" Elena repeats, insistent.

"Yes Elena, It's fine. I've done most of the heavy lifting over the last few days. It's not going to be a problem, I promise."

It's as much reassurance as Elena is ever going to get from Bonnie Bennett. She shares a look of understanding with Jeremy where he stands, never very far from his girlfriend's side. She takes some comfort from the knowledge that he'll do all he can to make sure Bonnie doesn't put herself in danger.

"OK." Elena nods reluctantly. "So then what? What's our plan?"

"Bonnie's already used the same spell as before to find Klaus's cloaking shield." says Jeremy. "We know his general area."

"If we can narrow down a location, we could go at first light," offers Rick. "The daylight won't affect Klaus, but it means any supernatural goons at his disposal will be at their most vulnerable."

"Well, now that Stefan's back from his self-imposed purgatory, he should be able to help us with that," offers Damon. "He's been with Klaus long enough to know his habits and his preferred haunts." His glance falls on Elena thoughtfully. The gaze lingers and his eyes darken slightly, and Elena wishes she could tell what he's thinking. She's almost certain that whatever's on his mind, it's not about Stefan any more.

"Ric, you should go, take Elena with you. She'll help you get the most out of him."

"You're not coming?" Ric asks the question hovering on Elena's lips.

"I'm the last person Stefan wants to see right now. Trust me, this will go better if I'm not there. You can debrief me on the details when you're done."

"OK, Damon." Ric looks unconvinced, but he obediently walks in the direction of the cellar entrance. He pauses uncertainly. "Elena, are you coming or...?" He looks between her and Damon, who is now studiously ignoring them both.

_Dismissed_.

With some effort, she pulls her attention from the most confusing vampire she knows.

"Yeah, Ric. Of course."

* * *

><p>Damon waits while everyone leaves the room. Everyone, that is, but Bonnie, who is taking a moment to gather her witchy baubles together.<p>

He picks up the ancient musty grimoire and holds it out to her. She reaches to take it, but he doesn't release his fingers.

Bonnie lifts her eyebrows haughtily and gives him her best "keep it up, and I'll turn you to a pile of smoldering ash with the power of my mind" death stare.

Which Damon ignores (it's getting old now, anyway).

"So, this weapon, it's really safe for you to spell? There's no danger whatsoever?"

"Yes, Damon." she huffs impatiently. "I already said that."

It's true, she did. And what's more, Damon believed her.

She wrenches the book out of his hand and turns to leave, but Damon stops her with a hand on her arm.

"And… how about the person using it?"

He gets an extended view of the exceptional stiffness of the Bennett family backbone before she finally turns reluctantly back to him.

"As I said, the spell will target the enchantment towards Klaus. But… it's not perfect."

And there's a shocker. Because witchy ju ju never comes with an unintended price tag.

"So what does 'not perfect' mean, exactly?" Damon looks her up and down, noting that rigid haughtiness she so favors seems to be wilting under this line of questioning. "You said it was like shaping an explosion. Are you suggesting there might be some kind of blowback?"

"I'm saying... you can't let Alaric use it."

"Or... Jeremy...?" It's not like he'd let little boy Gilbert near Klaus anyway, but he needs information, and the reflexive flare of panic the thought lights in Bonnie's eyes tells him plenty before she even opens her mouth.

"No, Damon. It would... kill a human for sure."

"But I'm guessing a vampire isn't necessarily going to walk away from it either?"

Bonnie shrugs. "Probably not."

_Hmmm._

"Especially not a vampire whose blood was used in a targeting spell for said weapon, one might imagine?"

"No." She lifts her head to meet his stare head on. At least she has the decency to look him in the eye. Whatever his differences with this little witchy teenager, he has to admit, she has balls. "Especially not a vampire like that."

"Well, I appreciate your honesty." Damon gives her a tight smile as he frees her arm.

"Damon," Bonnie sighs. "Look, I'm only telling you because I know you won't tell Elena. And that it won't make a difference to you. It wouldn't have made a difference to either of us."

She's right, of course.

Because this is it. Their one and only common ground. Either one of them would die for her, if that's what it took.

And that... That gives them some kind of unwilling respect for one another. An odd connection that binds them in spite of all things in heaven, earth and the underworld demanding they be absolute enemies.

All things but Elena.

"You're right. It doesn't change anything." Damon is fairly sure they've been through enough together to prove that no hare-brained, half-cocked, kamikaze scheme is too foolhardy for him to try when it comes to protecting Elena. Hell, a calculated risk like this wouldn't make him pause for consideration, even if he was the pause-for-consideration type.

Which, as they all know perfectly well, he's not.

"Good." Bonnie, for all her bravado, looks slightly relieved.

"Besides," she shrugs off-handedly, as she walks away from him, "you deserve to know."

Sure.

He deserves a lot of things. If he's honest, death by enchanted werevamp weapon is probably the least of it.

* * *

><p>Something's up.<p>

Brotherly bust-ups aside, this is the first time Elena's ever seen Damon avoid the hands-on approach. She honestly had expected Damon to grill Stefan himself.

Still, she had to admit he left the job in good hands. Ric performed an admirably thorough job of questioning Stefan, who in turn told them what he could.

It turned out to be quite a lot.

Most helpful was that when Ric pointed out the region that Bonnie had located, they discovered Klaus had stayed in the vicinity once before, when first en route to the doppelganger spell site. Stefan was able to tell them the exact location of the property, together with a fairly detailed description of the setup.

Elena had every intention of accompanying Alaric as he debriefed Damon, but Damon's right-hand man and favorite drinking partner vetoed her on that. She'd gone with him to Damon's room, ready to overrule him anyway.

That was, until she got to the threshold, whereupon Damon cordially invited Ric in, gave her a strange look and more-or-less shut the door in her face.

She's getting the distinct impression she's being frozen out, and frankly, she's sick of it. Hasn't she demonstrated by now that she's perfectly capable of looking after herself? She wonders if Caroline still has to deal with it - this "don't worry your pretty little head about this/you're just a girl" routine - now that she's stronger and faster than her entire high school varsity team put together.

She swirls the spoon in her mug of rapidly cooling tea. She'd come to the kitchen, realizing she hadn't eaten all day and that she should probably do something about that, but the truth is she's had too much on her mind to work up an appetite.

She checks the pantry anyway. Doritos, Ho Hos and two boxes of Pop-Tarts scream "Jeremy was here". She briefly envies the metabolism of the adolescent male, before moving on to the fridge. It's slightly better. Steaks. A carton of eggs. Half a slab of cheese. She pushes aside a blood bag to get to a carton of OJ and pulls out the cheese. She wonders if she should have grabbed the blood bag as well when she notices Caroline's been hovering behind her.

"Oh, hey Caroline. I don't suppose you know where the bread is? Or, alternatively" she looks back at the contents of the pantry, "anything that doesn't feature FD&C Red Number 5 as a primary ingredient?"

Caroline doesn't answer, and it is only now that Elena notices she seems... distracted. She looks at Elena, chewing her bottom lip absently.

Elena's fairly sure she's not thinking about the missing bread. She offloads her items on to the bench.

"Caroline, is everything OK?"

Caroline takes a seat on one of the tall stools beside the kitchen counter and looks at her brightly.

"Elena, it's been so long since we had some girl time, you know? Just you and me."

_Uh-oh._

Elena has a pretty good idea of where this is going.

She's been putting this conversation off for days now. And honestly, she doesn't think Caroline is the first on the list of people she should be talking to about this.

"Caroline, I don't know if this is the best time-"

"No, right, of course not, impending chaos, death, destruction, original werevamp takedowns... what's a little girl talk next to that, huh?"

"Right." Elena sighs in relief.

"But… " Caroline drums her perfectly-manicured fingers on the counter top. "What if I had a question. Just one." She raises her hands in supplication. "That's it, answer that one question and I promise I won't bother you any more about it until Klaus is safely behind bars and you are completely Original-free."

"Do I even have a choice?"

Caroline gives a nervous laugh. "Well, Elena, it's funny you should say that."

Okay, now Elena's just confused. "That I should say what, Caroline?"

"Choices. I mean, they can be funny things, can't they? Like, sometimes you might _think_ you know what a friend would choose, but then other things happen that make you wonder about that - like, _really_ wonder - and..."

Caroline exhales forcefully and determinedly squares her shoulders.

"I mean, just as a for instance. Hypothetically speaking. Say you had to choose between Stefan and Damon…"

"You'd choose Stefan, right?"

_Oh God._ It's a blonde ambush.

"_Right_, Elena?"

And the thing is, Caroline means well, Elena knows this. She really does, it's just that -

_Hang on._

"Wait a minute Caroline." She holds a finger up to her friend. "Why are you asking me this?"

Now it's Caroline's turn to be silent. Eyes downcast, she nervously twists her day ring around a slim finger.

"Caroline? I'm serious. What aren't you telling me?"

The vampire visibly squirms under Elena's demanding gaze.

"I might have… overheard something I wasn't supposed to."

"What did you hear, Caroline?"

Caroline finally shakes her head. "It wasn't Bonnie's call to make."

"You deserve to know too."


	20. Eve of Destruction

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

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><p>They've upgraded the plumbing since Damon last stayed here. And thank God for that. The water streams hot, the pressure is good, and Damon lets it assault his body, thousands of warm knives pricking then melting into his skin on contact, again and again, over and over until his muscles let go and his mind stops circling.<p>

He's lost.

He's always been good with the practical. Give him a problem and he'll take action. Good or bad, fix it or screw it, he'll finish the thing, one way or another.

Take this Klaus situation. The irony is that marching headlong into his own demise is the easy bit. Or simple at least. He's not squeamish about death. Even his own. It's just that...

He's never really felt like he's had anything to lose before.

And he knows he shouldn't see her. It is absolutely, categorically the _last_ thing he should do. Whatever comes of it, heart in his mouth or crushed on the floor, none of it can help anything. Or make him feel better. Or make her feel better, once tomorrow comes and she realizes what he's done.

He shouldn't see her.

But he has to know.

He has to know what he's losing.

* * *

><p>She's been thinking about this ever since she left Caroline. About the right thing to do. And she still isn't sure if she's made the right decision.<p>

And when Damon opens the door, she's still hovering in the center of his room, caught between staying and going, unable to commit to either.

Damon seems to sense her indecision. His response to it is to step inside and pull the door decisively shut behind him.

Elena reads the message loud and clear. _You're not going anywhere._

Damon runs a hand through his damp dark hair. She notices droplets still linger on his bare skin. Anyone else would be at disadvantage, standing there in nothing but a towel. But Damon's somehow more intimidating without clothes on. It certainly doesn't seem to bother him at all, standing there with a smouldering blue stare that is firmly fixed on her.

He takes step towards her.

The room seems so small, now that he's in it.

He finally speaks, voice low but filled with purpose.

"We need to talk."

Elena agrees quietly.

"I know."

* * *

><p>Elena's wearing an emerald tank top that makes her skin glow gold in the lamplight. Her jeans are cut just low enough to expose a tantalizingly brief curve of hip that disappears beneath the denim band.<p>

Both items of clothing seem specifically designed to send him crazy.

It doesn't help that the room is the size of a broom closet. Or that he's a towel and a prayer away from being naked.

Or that she kissed him less than an hour ago.

It's not that he didn't appreciate the sentiment. He just wants to know why, if she really wanted to thank him, she didn't just say it instead. Maybe write a nice card or, hell, send a fruit basket.

He _needs_ to know why. While he's still around to find out.

"What was that, Elena?"

He can't tell what she's thinking. She stands, serious but beautiful, eyes reflecting a kaleidoscope of fragments he wishes he could read.

"What was what, Damon?"

She hasn't forgotten already. She can't have.

"You kissed me, Elena. _Again._"

"I wasn't sick, I wasn't dying, and you weren't a doppelganger once-removed just pretending to be you. You _kissed_ me. And this time I want to know what it meant."

The kaleidoscope shifts, pieces swirling in a new pattern as a soft frown forms on her face. "This is what you want to talk about?"

"You don't think there's anything here worth talking about?" He takes another step towards her, until she's forced to look up at him - until if she moved she'd have to touch him. He's not the only one who's showered recently - he can smell the citrus trace of bathing products, the fresh clean skin that breathes underneath. He wonders how it would taste.

_One night_. He could change this girl's world in one night, if she'd let him.

And what's more... sometimes, when she's looking up at him like she is now, lips just barely parted and pupils wide and searching, he honestly believes that she might. Might more then let him. That, just maybe, if he dipped his head and claimed that sweetness, she might actually welcome it.

There'd be no gentle kisses - not this time. There'd be tongue and teeth, and skin and heat. He'd press everything he has into this girl, take everything she has in return, and he wouldn't stop - not until the fire burnt out, and the sun came up, and there was nothing left of either of them.

And even if he wasn't standing there in a whisper of Egyptian cotton, Elena could hardly miss his intent. The air feels thick and heavy with it. The unsaid. The undone.

"You warned me once that you never stop, no matter what you do," she says softly. "It's true. You really don't, do you?"

"Do you really want me to stop?" he whispers.

Does she?

Because, right now, he really needs to know. And never mind that he's a lost-cause vampire who makes poor choices in life and exes, has no impulse control, and could never, ever be worthy of this girl in front of him. Because this could be his last night on earth, and damn it if he's not ready to take a pass on that.

She's not talking. Just breathing. The pulse at her neck jumps faster than it should, and Damon leans slowly in towards it, thumbs skimming the skin above her hipsters as he does so.

But she stops him with a hand on his chest. "Damon... That's not..."

And it's the regret on her face that really clues him in on what's actually going on here.

He drops his arms and lifts his head.

"This is about Stefan. Isn't it?"

She looks down. After a moment, she nods silently. Damon feels the impact somewhere deep in his solar plexus.

"I'm sorry Damon. I came here because I didn't want you to hear it from anyone else."

And he really doesn't understand.

Because he knew this was going to happen. Warned himself against it 50 times a day. A foregone conclusion, the inevitable ending of the Disney classic he could never be a part of. No, he steeled his mind and fortified his heart against this very outcome.

So how can it possibly still hurt this badly?

"And I thought you should know. I mean, you should know anyway, but... I wanted you to know I'll be safe... with Stefan tonight. You don't have to look out for me anymore."

She can't meet his eyes. Because they both know what she's saying. That it's time for Damon to stop skulking in halls and hovering by her bedside. That the boyfriend he was protecting her from not three days ago, is now in the role of protector.

And he should do his Damon thing. Say something flippant, let her know he doesn't care, that it doesn't bother him. Make some ass-hat joke demonstrating how completely fine he is with all of this.

But he'd have to be able to breathe first.

And he can't.

* * *

><p>Damon's feeling much better this morning.<p>

Which is to say, he feels like shit. But at least he has the reassuring comfort of knowing it probably won't be for long.

In fact, he would have been well on his way to his suicide mission already, if Bonnie hadn't moved the damn weapon sometime before sunrise. And OK, given what he knows now about it, it's probably not the kind of toy you want to just leave around for any of the kiddies to pick up and play with. But still - it's _highly_ inconvenient.

What's more inconvenient is that he can see that it's not on her, and if he interrupts her intense conversation with little Gilbert right now, it might piss her off enough to turn this into some juvenile display of power and control, whereupon she won't tell him where it is, delaying even further the point at which he can depart from this stupid display of team solidarity, get on with what he does best and go rogue.

So instead of driving down the highway in his Camaro, wind in his hair and anchor in his heart, he's here. Pretending like he's part of the team. Watching Ric cook bacon, eggs and somethings suspiciously green and leafy on the stovetop.

It's touching, really, that Alaric is taking to the new faux-parent/caretaker role so diligently, but even if Damon needed to eat, he really isn't hungry. Still, he spearheads the odd piece of bacon from the pan in a token show of appreciation as he instructs Ric on the proper way to cook an omelet.

When Stefan finally stumbles down the stairs, mussy haired and bleary-eyed, Damon has to restrain an urge to take his fork and stab him in the eye with it.

(Oh come on, it would heal _fine__. _Eventually).

Besides, really, someone ought to do _something_. Because damned if his brother's not _still_ wearing his perpetual look of dour solemnity. Damon understands habits of 160-odd years die hard, but frankly he has no right to it today. He. Got. The Girl. Damon has approximately zero patience for his tortured-soul act this morning.

He is saved from the effort of pretending interaction with his ingrate brother when a half-primped Caroline sails in behind him. In direct contrast to his brother, she looks bright and chipper, overflowing with rainbow beams and fairy dust and grateful to be alive and in love.

Damon finds he wants to stab her with a fork also.

"Bonnie, did you move my curling iron?"

Ric turns from the bacon to give Caroline a look which fairly accurately sums up what Damon is thinking, and Caroline shrugs apologetically, "You want me to go into battle with some invincible uber-werevamp. You have no idea how critical good hair is to a girl's confidence levels."

"So seriously Bonnie, where is it?"

"Seriously Caroline," Bonnie turns from Jeremy in mild irritation. "When's the last time you saw me use a curling iron?"

Damon couldn't care less about hairdressing implements, but he appreciates the opportunity for conversational segue.

"First Blondie, you can probably skip the salon treatment this morning unless you think you're going to save us all some effort by seducing Klaus with your feminine wiles." _Good luck with that_.

"Secondly," he turns to Bonnie. "I'm more interested in where the weapon is."

"You don't have it?" Bonnie replies to him unhelpfully. To Caroline she offers, "Maybe Elena borrowed it." (Equally unhelpfully, Damon's sure - he hasn't seen Elena in curls since Founders' Day).

"_Bennett_. If I had it, would I be asking you?" He asks impatiently. What, are _all_ these people idiots?

"Where is Elena, anyway?" asks Caroline.

Huh.

Now that she mentions it... Where _is_ Elena? Damon honestly expected her to be half a step behind Stefan, and she still isn't here. It's not like her _not_ to be putting herself squarely, obtrusively, meddlingly in the thick of it. A faint tingle sets off in the back of his brain. He turns to his brother, weapon momentarily forgotten. "Yes, Stefan. Where is your girlfriend?"

"Why would I know, Damon?"

You see? This is why people shouldn't outsource. Stefan hasn't had the job for 12 hours, and he's already screwing it up.

Stefan reads as much from his face.

"We're not together, Damon. I'm not her keeper. She wanted some space. I gave it to her."

"_No_." Damon says the word very slowly, very deliberately. "She told me you were back together. She _told_ me she was spending the night with you. It's your _job_ to know where she is."

"I don't understand." Stefan frowns, the addition of a forehead crease the telltale sign he's moved from merely morose to seriously concerned. "Why would she say that?"

The tingle blares into a fully-fledged siren, and Damon feels the hairs on his neck rise in alarm.

"_Oh no_."

The utterance comes from Blondie's pink little O-shaped lips, and Damon has her against the wall in less time than it takes his fork to hit the floor.

"Caroline?" Damon is dimly aware of Stefan holding Tyler back somewhere in the background. "What did you do?"

_"Where's_ Elena?"

The vampire looks upset - but, credit where credit's due, not about him holding her against a wall, ready to rip her throat out.

"I didn't think she'd..." Caroline starts, then trails off, finally looking at Bonnie accusingly. "You should have told her. Told everyone. This never would have happened if you weren't all sneaking around keeping secrets."

Cat out of the bag, Damon lets Caroline go. He ignores the stares he can feel from around the room as Caroline straightens her clothes uneasily.

"What kind of secrets?" Ric looks between Bonnie, Caroline and Damon. He doesn't sound pleased.

"Like, that the weapon is crazy dangerous and Damon might _die_ using it." Caroline blurts out.

_"What?"_

It's a voice Damon might not have recognized as his brother's, had he not been with his alter ego just a few days ago. Maybe they let the ripper out of the cage a little prematurely.

And Ric looks angry too. Even Jeremy is looking at Judgy with a little judgment of his own right now.

But it's all about Elena, surely. None of this could be for him.

Could it?

It doesn't matter. None if it matters now.

"Bonnie can explain." Damon barks. "I'll drive."


	21. Unbreak my Heart

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

* * *

><p>"You'll never pull it off."<p>

Elena spins, surprised. There she is. Her nemesis. Her reflection. Everything Elena fears she might be, underneath, when you strip the civility, the compassion, the humanity away.

And lately Elena has wondered. How far, really, is she from this?

She has torn out the hearts of both Salvatore brothers. She intentionally hurt Damon last night. She might argue it was to save him, not herself, but she's sure Katherine always has her reasons for her actions as well. No doubt she thinks they're good ones too.

"Your hair's not right. Your makeup is... amateur at best. Being me isn't as easy as it looks, you know." Katherine observes with disdain.

And Elena had really been hoping to get further than this before being discovered. It's not a good omen. Running into Katherine... being in the same space as Katherine, could ruin everything. If Klaus finds them...

Will it even matter? Will Katherine turn her in?

"Are you under compulsion, Katherine?" she asks urgently, even as she realizes the vampire couldn't tell her if she was.

But Katherine rolls her eyes in a way that Elena finds comforting. "Klaus thinks so - I've gotten better at the act since last time. But... I've safeguarded against it." She pats her side.

"You're wearing vervain."

"Not... wearing exactly." Katherine lifts her shirt revealing skin that is brown, and smooth, except for an expanse by her waist that is red and inflamed. Scarlet patches ripple under Elena's eye.

"What is that?"

"It's the amulet from your little necklace, actually. I couldn't risk Klaus being able to find it and take it from me, could I?"

"The wound's not healing?"

"My body's rejecting it - vampires and vervain never mix well. I've had to replant it twice already. But it's infinitely better than being in Klaus's thrall."

"And you," she shakes her head, "if you're here, where are the Salvatores?" she clicks her tongue impatiently, "It's about time they showed up."

"They're not here."

Katherine stops her visual search of her surroundings to look at Elena in surprise. Then disbelief. Then disappointment.

"Oh, you stupid little idiot." Katherine shuts her eyes in frustration. "Damon's right. You are suicidal."

"So you came here alone and unarmed planning to do what, exactly?"

"I'm not unarmed," Elena replies defiantly. She reaches into her rucksack to pull out Bonnie's spelled cross.

Katherine looks at it curiously, tracing a finger along one of the vines. "What is it?"

"It's a weapon to trap Klaus."

"Which doesn't explain what you're doing with it. Why not leave it to Damon? He's good with weapons. Better than Stefan and _infinitely_ better than you."

Elena wages an internal war against telling Katherine. There's every possibility she could be tricked into helping. It's not like she doesn't deserve it.

"He's still alive, isn't he?" The tone is careless, but Katherine's gaze is intent as she asks the question. It reminds Elena that the vampire has saved Damon twice over the past days and, as much as she hates to admit it, Elena owes her for that. She owes her enough for honesty in this.

"He's fine, but... he won't be if he uses this."

Katherine pulls her hand back as if burned.

"So what then, this is like the Originals Dagger? You need a human to wield it?"

"No." Elena shakes her head. "It will kill a human if they use it. But I thought if I could sneak in... I mean, if they thought I was you - maybe I could make it past Klaus's men and find the coffins, find... Elijah."

"And you were going to undagger Elijah," concludes Katherine.

"He owes us. He promised he would kill Klaus, and he let us down so that he could find his family. Well, if I undaggered him, I thought he might-"

"Might what? Sacrifice himself? He's been around a long time, you know. I imagine he's fairly attached to his life by now."

"Still, he's an original. The weapon targets Klaus, not him, and he's strong. He has the best chance of any of us of making it out. And if I don't undagger him, he'll be trapped in a box for the rest of his life. It seemed like a pretty good deal." At the time. In her late night panic. In the cold light of day, it seems a lot less certain. A lot more risky. But it's the only plan she's got.

Katherine cocks her head, considering. "He sees you looking like that, he might kill you before you get the chance to ask. If you hadn't noticed, he doesn't like me much."

"Look, Katherine, I don't have time for this. Are you going to help me, or not?"

* * *

><p>By unspoken agreement, Stefan and Damon have gone on ahead alone. There is no room here to be concerned about speed limits, reckless driving, or respecting the laws of physics to the extent required to keep mortal passengers safe. With Elena in danger, all feuds are forgotten, and their purpose is singleminded and clear.<p>

Damon is driving. Stefan noticed his brother didn't even have to ask - Ric just handed his keys straight over.

This is not how this was supposed to go down. For either of them.

Finding Elena has slipped out of their protection is bad enough. Discovering that his brother has been part of another barely-foiled suicide attempt is ...

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Damon switches down a gear as he cuts a corner dangerously close to a utility pole.

"You know why. I was trying to avoid _this_."

Damon waits for the car to straighten out before glancing sidelong at him, "And let's not pretend Elena was my only problem. You would have done exactly the same thing, if you'd known." He looks back to the road. "Truth is, I'm sick to death of pulling both of you from your attempts to run headlong to your own funerals. At least this way I'd be out of it."

"Even though you know it's not what either of us want?"

"It would destroy her, you know." As much as it hurts Stefan to admit it. "It would destroy both of us."

He'd told Elena he'd needed to find a cure for his brother because he'd owed it to him after forcing vampirism on him all those years ago. But it was only half the truth.

Whatever they've been through, whatever Damon's done or hasn't done, he loves his brother.

And as jealous as he sometimes gets of Damon's relationship with Elena, he's realized it isn't always just about his fear of losing Elena's affections. There's a part of him that's jealous of Elena's relationship with Damon too

The way she seems to get him in a way that Stefan - Stefan, who grew up with Damon, who spent the last century and a half in and on-again off-again dance of brotherly threats and cajolements with him - has never been able to.

In fact, any closeness he's regained with Damon now, he owes to her.

"We'll get her back Stefan." Damon tells him.

It's false confidence, but Stefan appreciates it. Damon's bravado usually irritates the hell out of him. His brother has caused him so much trouble with his cocksure arrogance, reckless impulsivity, prodigious ability to destroy and charm in equal measure - the way he sees what he wants and barrels full throttle into it, no thoughts, no hesitation, no regrets.

There is no one in the world Stefan would rather have on his side in this.

"I'm glad you're here."

Damon gives him a nod and a half-smile, and plants the accelerator.

* * *

><p>Katherine hates this barn.<p>

It's big and it's dusty and, despite the fact that the disused stalls look like they've been empty for decades, it still stinks faintly of horseshit.

But it's also home to two rows of surprisingly gleaming coffins. And one of them, she knows, contains Elijah.

Okay, one of them, she's _reasonably sure,_ contains Elijah. It's not like Klaus confides his family secrets in her, but what other reason can he have for hauling a matching box set around with him?

"You sure you want to do this?"

"Probably something best discussed _before_ you killed two of Klaus's guards to get us in here, don't you think Katherine?" Elena points out helpfully.

"And anyway, yes. I'm sure." Elena walks over to a row of coffins with the purposeful stride of someone trying to prove a point.

Katherine shrugs, taking her place at the first box in the unattended row. "Just checking." She flips the lid, finding a dry, husky male occupant, younger than Elijah but impaled with an encouragingly familiar-looking dagger. "I mean, if I was you, I would have let Damon sacrifice himself - I know he would have. Stefan too, for that matter."

"Why do you always choose Stefan?" Elena blurts out.

_Hmmm_.

Katherine smiles wickedly. "What an odd question coming from his girlfriend."

"I'm not." Elena bites back immediately, then looks chastened by the slip. She drops her own lid and doesn't make eye contact as she moves to another casket.

"Oh. I see. Switched teams, have we?"

Katherine enjoys it, cajoling this young, naive human inhabiting her likeness. It reminds her of herself, once upon a time. Before her life became about survival and original-dodging. The truth is she almost envies Elena the luxury of conscience and compassion. Sure, it's going to get the girl killed, but that's hardly Katherine's problem.

"I haven't switched anything," Elena insists, struggling with a brass clasp.

"Of course not."

Katherine hoists the coffin lid in front of her until it is resting open on its hinges. "Look, I understand, Elena. You have no idea how I understand."

"They both have their charms, I'll admit. And Stefan's love, it is pure."

"Not very true though, is it?" she adds conversationally.

"I don't know what you mean."

Of course she doesn't. She's still lost in the world of warm and fuzzy, unicorns and rainbows. She doesn't know what it's like, to be considered for what you really are, found wanting, and discarded. To be left out in the cold.

Katherine turns to her younger doppelganger, crossing her arms.

"He loved me, Elena. He _loved_ me, and it was so pure and light and... good, and frankly, like nothing I had ever felt. It was different to anything I had experienced, to anything I _was_."

"But then he found out I was a monster, and it was gone. _Poof_. Just like that." She spreads her arms and snaps her fingers.

"That's a fickle kind of love, don't you think?" She says, turning back to her row of cold, dead vampires.

And she can admit, now, that it hurt.

It hurt to have to compel him not to despise her.

And the sad pathetic truth of it was, after so many centuries of hardening her heart, she'd though herself beyond having it broken...

It was... disconcerting to discover she was wrong. To say she hadn't appreciated the discovery was an understatement

"Now, Damon..." There was a different story. "When he discovered I was a vampire, it didn't make a damn bit of difference. He accepted it as part of who I was - the woman he loved."

Having confirmed the occupant in front of her as blonde, female, and definitely not Elijah, Katherine moves to the next coffin in her row.

"Yet you still chose Stefan."

"I'm a dark creature, Elena. We dark creatures are drawn to the light. Damon is as dark as I am." Katherine twists to look back at where Elena crouches, struggling awkwardly with another coffin. "And what about you? What are you drawn to?"

Her doppelganger stays silent. Good girl, ignoring the bait. Or maybe she's just not ready to admit the truth. To either of them.

"Anyway," she adds off-handedly, "it was Stefan's love I lost. And you know how I hate to lose."

Of course, it didn't help that every time she looked at Damon, he reminded her of her own silly hopes, the lovelorn foolishness that she'd tried to bury so deep. His devotion had come to represent the pathetic human weakness that she had come to despise in herself.

"Well, now you've lost them both," snaps Elena.

"Perhaps. Did you ever think, Elena, that it might be kinder to give one of them up, to let him sacrifice himself for you? Instead of leaving them both to run around you like fawning idiots for the rest of their lives?"

"Because that's what _you_ would have chosen. For their own good." Elena huffs sarcastically.

"No, of course not. But then, I'm the selfish, uncaring monster, aren't I. You're supposed to be the fair maiden of this piece."

Mind you, the fair maiden's looking fairly guilty right now.

_Guilt_. Another luxury a monster can't afford to indulge. And completely pointless, when it comes down to it. Beside, would it really have done Katherine any good, to choose a brother? And what of _their_ free will? She might have compelled away Stefan's fear, his prejudice, but both brothers were always free to make their own choices. Surely she can't be held responsible for those?

This time when Katherine swings the lid open, she sees a familiar clean jaw and chiseled features beneath a sweep of dark hair.

"_Bingo_."

And thank God for that. This girly conversation is turning out far less fun than she had hoped (which explains why she's so short on girl friends). Another moment of it and she might have found herself volunteering for Klaus killing duty.

Elena drops her lid in a clatter and comes to stand beside her. As her human doppelganger reaches for the dagger Katherine puts her hand on her arm.

"Wait -"

Elena pauses, her face questioning and vaguely irritated. _Irritated. _At _her_, a conscienceless killer 500 years her senior.

Katherine has to admit the girl's got spunk.

"If I don't survive this," she tells Elena quietly, "Tell him I'm sorry."

"Him?"

Katherine frowns. "Both of them."

Elena nods, and Katherine watches as she slides the silver dagger free of the original's chest.

"If you really think you're not going to make it," Elena asks her, "Why aren't you running?"

Katherine stares at the handsome corpse in front of them. "I've been running ever since the day I left him."

"Elijah?"

Katherine nods. "Elijah, Klaus... I'm not a deer to be hunted. I want this over. I want to _see_ that it's over. With my own eyes."

"I've had enough."

500 years of running is more than enough. She's seen now, what it looks like to have a home, to have a place where you belong. Where people look out for each other. It's not for the likes of her, for the people who exist without bonds. Who can't afford to. She wonders, if she hadn't had her entire family slaughtered, if she'd had somewhere to belong over the past 5 centuries, if she'd have turned out differently.

"Did you know he found an elixir?" Elena motions toward Elijah. "For you? So that you wouldn't have to die to break the curse, 500 years ago?"

_Why would he do that? _ Katherine wonders_._

But all she says is, "I bet he regrets that now."

Elena eyes her sadly. Katherine fixes her petulant gaze even harder on the original to avoid the teenage human pity emanating from her right.

It's his pinky that twitches first.

"Uh, Elena -"

"_Niklaus_..." Elijah bolts upright, panting.

He reaches out until his hands stumble upon Elena, gripping so hard he'll probably leave bruises on that little human body. "_You_."

"Katerina." He rasps.

"It's Elena, Elijah. I'm Elena. That's Katherine." Of course Elena seems compelled to draw attention to where Katherine now stands (sensibly) several feet away.

"Hi Elijah," Katherine offers.

"Long time no see."

* * *

><p>Elijah regards them gravely. "You know what you're asking."<p>

"Yes, I know, but this is our chance to take him out." Elena has no idea what Elijah is thinking. He remained mostly silent through her explanations, silently staring at the weapon in his lap. "Klaus betrayed you."

"And what you are too polite to mention is that I betrayed you." Elijah holds Elena's eyes, dark and unfathomable. "But this would seem rather a high price to pay."

"You're an original. It won't kill you. It's a containment spell, and it's not even aimed at you. At worst you'll be trapped. If I hadn't undaggered you, you would be no worse off."

"And if I don't agree, are you going to redagger me, child?"

He doesn't laugh, though it surely must be a joke. Elijah's humor is so dry there's no real way to tell for certain.

"Of course not." Elena replies, making it clear just in case (after all, she does have a poor redaggering history). She places the dagger in Elijah's palm, echoing the show of trust she'd given the original once before.

He glances behind her to where Katherine hovers, unusually quiet. "I could make her do it."

"You couldn't. She's on vervain."

"That's right, I am." Katherine asserts. "Give me 5 minutes and I'll find you a lackey who's not though," she offers.

Elijah pauses thoughtfully, and Elena wonders if he is considering Katherine's offer. Or hers. Or something else entirely.

"Unfortunately we won't have that long." Elijah lilts.

"My brother is already here."


	22. Showdown

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

* * *

><p>"For now, it would be best if he does not know you are here." Elijah muses.<p>

Elena doesn't have a chance to consider what that might mean before she finds herself propelled at speed, then dumped unceremoniously on a straw-covered floor. Her human body always finds vamp speed slightly disorientating, and it takes her a moment to realise where she is.

The wooden beams sloping overhead tell her she is still in the barn, and she recognizes the slatted panels in front of her as one of the stall doors. Only now she is looking at it from the other side.

She stumbles carefully to her feet. Careful to remain crouched low, she slides her way gingerly along the rough wall until she's close enough to peer through the gap in one of the slats of the door that separates her from the main barn. She realizes her stall is positioned at the back of the building. From here she can easily see Elijah, now standing in the midst of the caskets. His stance is apparently nonchalant as his hands clasp loosely behind his back and about Bonnie's weapon.

Katherine, by contrast, looks ready for flight. Her body seems tense and her limbs poised for action. Elena can't see either of their faces. They are both turned away from her, towards the entrance of the barn. Waiting.

They aren't waiting long.

_"Katerina_."

A familiar voice thunders through the structure, sending shivers down Elena's spine as the large barn doors swing open with more force than a hurricane.

_"I know you are in here."_

Elena stills, almost afraid to breathe as Klaus thunders in through the doors. His eyes sweep rapidly over the interior. Thankfully they overlook her presence completely as they alight, narrowing, on Katherine, then widening upon reaching Elijah. Klaus's face goes pale and still - whether through fear or through rage, Elena can't tell.

"Niklaus," Elijah greets his brother smoothly. "You don't seem pleased to see me."

Klaus turns back to Katherine and his nostrils flare dangerously.

So rage then, apparently.

"What have you done, Katerina?" Klaus's voice is dangerously quiet.

"Would you believe it actually wasn't me?" Katherine asks provocatively. Elijah meets her eyes - briefly, impassively, but it's enough to keep the doppelganger from taking her comment any further.

"And what about Phillipe and Dustan? Or rather, the mess that remains of them outside." Klaus's voice is terse with displeasure. "I suppose you had _nothing to do with that either_?" The accusation escalates into a roar, and Katherine cringes at the onslaught.

"Okay, that was me," admits Katherine carefully, "but you have to let me explain."

Klaus's hands bunch into fists, and Katherine edges instinctively closer to Elijah where he stands watching silently. Elena notices a slight stiffening as the eldest original's eyes flicker to the barn entrance. She follows his gaze, but can make out nothing in the brightness beyond the open doors.

"I was... lonely." Katherine improvises. "Let's face it, Klaus, you haven't been very good company, and if you'll only admit it," she cocks her head at him meaningfully, "you know you've been lonely too. And you two are _family_. You need to get over this little hiccup."

"When you really look at it, I was doing you a favor," Katherine adds in her most convincing tone. "You were just letting your pride get in the way."

"Pride. Yes, pride was my mistake," agrees Klaus. "Thinking that I could _possibly_ keep you alive, Katerina, without you managing to find some new way to sabotage my plans." He takes a menacing stride closer to the pair (and Elena's hiding space), and Elena concentrates on trying to shrink further into the woodwork as he approaches.

"Stay away from her," a voice growls in warning from somewhere beyond him.

A familiar set of brotherly silhouettes detach themselves from the sunlit glare outside the barn, moving inside to occupy spaces flanking either side of the entrance. Stefan holds an axe and Damon a rusty scythe. More improvisation, Elena guesses. Neither weapon will have more than a token effect on an original (hybrid or not) and Elena mentally wills them both to stay back.

And OK, so she knew that the Salvatores would come for her. That they were _bound_ to, just as soon as they discovered her duplicitous absence. But she'd hoped she'd have more time than this.

And now that neither brother possesses Bonnie's secret weapon, being here makes them more vulnerable than ever.

Elena inwardly curses. She had not been willing to sacrifice either of them. Now, she fears, she is in danger of losing them both. She can only hope that Elijah, appearing so mysteriously and frustratingly neutral thus far, won't let it get to that.

"You should do as my brother says," says Stefan seriously.

"Because you're done Klaus. It's over."

"Really," says Klaus, vaguely disbelieving. He looks at the group gathered around him. "So what is this? An intervention?" he questions sarcastically.

"You know, I really didn't expect you to return, Stefan. And you -" Klaus looks at Damon, "frankly, I didn't expect you to be in the kind of condition to perform comings or goings of _any_ kind."

"However," the hybrid muses, "I _am_ beginning to see I really should have killed all of you when I had the chance."

Damon tilts his head impudently at the threat while Stefan stares at the hybrid in grim silent challenge.

"But it really is just _incredibly_ stupid of you two to return," Klaus looks genuinely baffled. "I suppose idiocy must run in the family. Have you come to avenge your little dead doll, then? Is that what all this interference is about?"

"You _do_ understand that you can't beat me," he adds in a mocking tone.

Klaus turns back to look with significance at Elijah, all signs of mirth dropping from his face as he regards his brother's face. "None of you can."

Klaus takes another step toward his original sibling, who nonchalantly adjusts his stance to face him straight on, continuing to keep Bonnie's enchanted cross out of sight behind him.

"But tell me brother, have _we_ really sunk so low?" Klaus asks him. "That now you are siding with the little whore against me?"

Elena sees the angle of Damon's scythe shift almost imperceptibly behind Klaus as his grip tightens in response to the barb.

Which is ridiculous, really, because Damon's called Katherine far worse himself.

Except... Elena is experiencing a growing suspicion that neither Damon nor Stefan think this is Katherine.

That would, after all, explain why the brothers have stormed in here, paper guns blazing. The way they stand there, poised and ready to run into the fray even though they have nothing now to fight with. They must have worked it out. Or... _most_ of it out, at least. They must know that she left dressed like Katherine this morning. That she came here pretending to be her doppelganger. By now, they've realized she did it to bring Elijah back. It's just the sort of thing that she would do - has done, in fact.

But what they don't know, Elena concludes with dismay, is that the girl in front of them, standing at Elijah's side and drawing Klaus's ire, is the real deal.

This could be bad. Very, _very_, bad.

"I think the code of 'bros before hoes', as it has so eloquently become known, was tarnished slightly when you killed me and put me in a box," points out Elijah succinctly.

"Well," spits Klaus, "let's not forget, shall we, brother - you did try to kill me first." He smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes - barely reaches his lips, in fact. And Elena understands, for the first time, just how much Elijah's betrayal (though surely not completely unexpected?) has hurt his younger brother's feelings.

"And what about the rest of our family?" Elijah returns, finally raising his voice to match Klaus's. The sterling tones ring out with an aggression so powerful it makes Elena's blood run cold, and she's not even its target. "What crime were they guilty of to deserve _this_?" The original gestures around him at the nearby caskets, gleaming cold in the light that streams through the doorway.

"They _let_ - _me_ - _down_." Klaus roars back. Elijah regards his brother's outburst with impressive composure. Klaus, still breathing heavily, seems to restrain himself with effort, ultimately settling for leveling a look of pure accusation at his brother. "_Everybody_ lets me down eventually."

"Why?" Elijah retorts disdainfully. "Because we don't always _agree_ with you? Because we occasionally fail to fall in line with your pompous plans and blindly share your narcissistic visions? I spent centuries loyal at your side, and that still was not enough for you." Elijah's lip twists. "You are a spoilt brat, Niklaus. You think only of yourself and you don't care who you hurt in the process. You have to have what you want, and if someone won't give it to you, you punish them."

He regards his brother wearily. "We loved you once, Klaus. I did, Rebecca did, especially." He shakes his head in disgusted disappointment. "But you didn't deserve it."

"You used to think differently, brother. We used to be comrades in arms, remember?" Klaus's lips settle into a grim line. "Until you betrayed me."

He turns to Katherine, hate flashing in his eyes. "And I see that, once again, she's turned you against me." He snorts in derision. "I should have know better than to trust you near another Petrova."

"You really think I needed a Petrova for that? After all that you've done?" Elijah's regal features are marred by faint disbelief as he regards his brother. "Still blaming everyone else for your mistakes, I see."

"Still forsaking your own blood for a pretty face, I see."

"Half-blood, brother." Elijah points out grimly. "I have no full blood family left. You saw to that, Niklaus."

Klaus looks past the caskets that must hold the brethren Elijah speaks of, instead gazing unfocused into nothing. Eventually he collects himself and turns back to his brother.

"It doesn't matter," he finally responds. "None of it matters. Not anymore."

Klaus looks at his brother flatly. "And if you have become attached to this one as well, then that is your mistake. It will end no better than the last."

Klaus seems to come to a decision. And Elena, able to watch his face from her viewpoint at the back of the barn, to see the fangs erupt from his gums and his eyes glow threateningly amber, has a good idea of what it is.

_Oh no._

The adrenaline that floods through Elena as she realizes Klaus's intention seems to slow time's passage to syrup. And yet it is still not slow enough for her to follow Klaus's progress as he moves, lightning fast, to stand over her doppelganger, gripping one of Katherine's arms aggressively behind her back as he looms above her with lupine eyes.

And Katherine has realized it too. The face that turns up to his has the look of someone who understands this moment to be her last.

Klaus returns her look with a dull mix of pain and despondency. "She will not live to betray me again," he whispers.

Elena doesn't even glance at the Salvatores. She doesn't need to look into their eyes to know of the realization that must dawn there, or the hell that's about to break loose.

She doesn't have time to.

And she doesn't think about what will happen to her once Klaus finds out that she's still alive and in this barn with him. She just thinks about what will happen to others if they don't find out. She has a particularly vivid flashback to a day at Duke when a dark-haired vampire took an arrow for her as fast as she could blink.

But Klaus doesn't use anything as innocuous as arrows.

And Elena isn't blinking.

Instead she screams his name as she barrels over the door and into the midst of the oncoming melee.

* * *

><p>The action in the barn freezes in response to Elena's dramatic entrance, and she is met by an almost comical tableau.<p>

Damon, Stefan and Klaus look up at her in surprised confusion. Elijah seems less surprised, but no less attentive to the interruption.

The only person to completely ignore her is Katherine.

Ever calculating, ever resourceful, ever the survivor, Elena's doppelganger doesn't look her way at all. Instead, taking advantage of the distraction and her remaining free hand, she wrenches Bonnie's cross from Elijah's grip and, thumb on the trigger, drives it deeply and passionately into Klaus's torso.

Klaus, looking downward, seems confused by the spiked woodwork protruding from his belly.

"What - "

His question is cut short on a choking gasp.

Tendons cord in his neck as he struggles to draw breath. Elena sees the vines aggressively wreathing out from the Bonnie's weapon, growing and tangling through his centre and surrounding his body, squeezing lungs and traversing bones as they create an ever-growing stranglehold. Another tendril of vines crushes its way around Katherine's forearm, snaking inexorably upwards even as she tries unsuccessfully to speed her way free.

Elena can't look away, watching in morbid fascination as the vines continue to clamber over Klaus, freezing him in place limb by limb. They have completely entwined the hybrid and progressed their hold almost to Katherine's right shoulder by the time they finally stop their assault. Leaves curl and wither as the vines change from vibrant green to hard granite grey, solidifying into stone in front of her.

As the structure petrifies, the squeezing pressure seems to ease in place. Klaus's wheezing fades, though his veins bulge and sweat pops out of his skin as he struggles in vain against the newly inanimate bindings.

"What is this?" he demands.

Roaring in frustration, his eyes glow, and Elena watches in trepidation as muscles ripple, and bones start to crack. At first Elena thinks it's Bonnie's magic, but then she understands -

Klaus is trying to turn.

_Trying_ being the operative word. His howls turn to human cries of agony, but still the cage holds fast.

"What is this?" Klaus repeats, desperately this time.

"_Elijah_?" He bellows in a cry part anger, part anguish, part plea.

Elijah meet his brother's eyes, sad and a little resigned.

"This is... someone putting you in a box, little brother."


	23. When One Barn Door Closes

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

**A/N:**

_**So hello to RachaelMaree who asked for the drafts for the rest of the story, so here they are for those who need to know how the story ends :)**_

**_And also, it's apparently Christmas because I even got a nice new review - hi Katie, and thank you for your most kind words :)_**

* * *

><p>Elena threads dusky fingers through dark hair, sending reassuring tones through the cellphone she holds in her hand. "No, everything's fine. I promise Jer. Nobody died. I'll see you soon."<p>

"They're not far away." Damon tells her.

Elena eagerly scans the horizon in response, shading her eyes against the climbing sun. But Damon knows she won't find what she's looking for. The undulating dirt driveway is empty as far as the eye (human or vampire) can see.

"You guys really need to change that fanbelt," he offers by way of explanation.

He realizes it's clearly not explanation enough as she looks back him, eyebrows peaking questioningly.

God she's adorable.

"The car, Elena. I can hear the car," he adds helpfully. "A couple of miles at the most".

"Oh. Of course," she smiles, a little awkwardly, and looks back towards the road.

And uncomfortable silences aside, Damon is aware that he only has a couple of minutes alone here, without his brother, without the cast of thousands that make up her family and friends, before he loses this opportunity again.

"Elena?"

A heartbeat passes before she turns, hesitantly, back to him.

"What, Damon?"

"I'm sorry."

She frowns, as if this wasn't what she was expecting. "About what?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He says quietly. "I could have got you killed."

"But you didn't." She smiles at him. "Everyone's fine."

The smile momentarily falters as she looks faintly troubled.

"Well, everyone but Katherine."

And if Damon didn't know better he'd think she really might feel sorry for her. _Sorry_. For Katherine Pierce.

Actually, bleeding heart that Elena is, she probably is.

"What do you think will happen to her?"

"I wouldn't worry about Katherine, Elena."

"In fact," he closes his eyes, briefly reattuning his ears to the noise inside a barn, where a certain she-devil vamp can be heard in passionate discourse with an unflappable original, "even now, our dear Katherine is explaining to Elijah how he owes her for her noble, not to mention _completely_ accidental sacrifice, and that him and his merry band of witches better find a way to get her out of this."

He shakes his head at Elena's expression. "Forget it, Elena. I know that woman. She'll cut her own arm off if that's what it takes."

"I hope she does find a way out of it," says Elena, her perfectly serious expression confirming Damon's worst suspicions.

"Elena, this is _Katherine_. Your evil doppelganger twin and vampbitch from hell. You _hate_ Katherine."

"I think she's... misunderstood. And we're lucky that she was there today." Elena insists.

"I will allow you that." Damon concedes.

And, hell, he's still struggling to fully process the events of the barn. Truthfully, he's barely let himself think since discovering Elena missing this morning, given contemplating the possibilities hadn't seemed particularly well aligned with his need to not fall apart.

As a result, he's got quite a backlog of worst-case-scenario processing to do, and no intention of tackling it sober.

As Elena absently twists one outstretched arm within the grasp of the other, a flash of scarlet causes Damon's vampire instincts to flare. She doesn't resist as he bends her elbow to better examine the track of red that runs along her forearm.

"You're hurt."

"Oh," Elena cranes her neck and rotates her arm awkwardly to get a better look, "It's nothing. Those old barns are full of splinters."

"You have to admit," she adds, grimacing, "a graceful hurdler I'm not."

Damon gently traces the edge of the graze. "I don't know," he lifts his eyes to hers seriously, "I think it may have been the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"Liar."

But she's laughing.

So it was worth it.

"Look, Elena, I wanted to -"

But he's already lost her as she turns, distracted by the noise of tyres on gravel so loud a human couldn't miss it.

"They're here," she murmurs.

That they are.

Predictably, pandemonium breaks loose almost immediately.

Ric shouts at Jeremy vainly to wait until he's stopped the car, but the kid's already launching himself out of his seat, and the others aren't far behind.

And just like that, Elena is taken away from him.

First its her brother, grabbing Elena in a bear hug that even Damon has to admit is sweet, then Judgy, who seems to be keeping a careful but conspicuous distance from her boyfriend this morning.

Caroline, on seeing Elena alive and well and standing in front of her, bursts straight into tears.

Damon is getting the distinct feeling that Elena is going to be occupied for a while.

That's okay, Damon supposes they didn't need to talk anyway. Unresolved conversations are kinda their thing, after all.

"Damon?"

"Ric."

Alaric breaks into a boyish grin that makes him look about 10 years younger.

And this huggy thing is apparently contagious, because Damon suddenly finds himself in the absurdly uncomfortable position of being smothered in tan leather and cheap cologne (well, history teacher salary and all). Though he has to give it to him, Ric handles it well, the macho vampire hunter looking only moderately awkward as he disengages from his uncharacteristic outbreak of sappiness.

"So it's true. You made it out alive." He grins again. It's something Damon wishes he'd seen more since they lost Jenna, but given that that was as a result of their last, singularly unsuccessful, tangle with Klaus, it's no wonder Ric looks so happy to see them today.

"What the hell happened? I tried to find out from Jeremy, but all he'd gotten was some weird story about Katherine taking Klaus down. I couldn't make much sense of it."

Damon snorts. "Yup, Katherine took a bullet for the team. Saved us all."

At Ric's incredulous look he adds, "Not on purpose, obviously."

"Obviously".

Ric pushes skeptically "And everyone's really okay? No supernatural curses, lupine-related illnesses or unexpected complications?" He glances about the group, taking inventory. "And Stefan?"

"Ask him yourself." Damon nods towards towards the grassy expanse behind them where his brother can now be seen making his way towards them.

"I suggested we might want to get some of Klaus's blood for the road before we head back. You know, in case Tyler and Caroline get kinky. You never know when a bit of werewolf antidote might come in handy."

"Good plan," Ric says approvingly.

"I know," Damon winks.

"And as much as my baby bro seems to have everyone convinced, recent murder sprees aside, that he's such a compassionate soul, he was first in line wanting to put a couple of 30 gauge needles into Klaus."

Or it could be, Damon thinks guiltily, something to do with the price his brother last paid for the werevamp's blood. Either way, they could all do with the insurance.

"We all good, brother?" he calls out.

In answer, his approaching sibling holds up two vials of dark crimson liquid.

"With some luck, once we're out of here, none of us will ever have to look at Klaus's face again," Stefan offers grimly as he approaches the group.

"Amen to that." Personally, Damon thinks he's developing an allergy to original hybrid. Even thinking about him now, his skin is starting to itch and his eyes are starting to tingle a little.

"So no catches? You've gone in and come out two complete vampires and one healthy human girl?" Ric presses, still in apparent disbelief that what started out as such a disastrous day could have resolved without casualty or at least some major dismemberment.

"Well, physically Elena's fine. Probably could do with a firmer hand in the upbringing department though," Damon suggests reprovingly to Ric, her current quasi-father figure. He is, of course, joking.

Sort of.

Elena, apparently overhearing, frees herself from her entourage partly to reassure, but mostly, Damon suspects, to defend herself from pending (completely justified) allegations of reckless insanity.

"I'm fine Ric. Barely a scratch on me, 100 percent, human. I promise." She brightly meets Ric's eyes and avoids Damon's, who notes she's keeping her injury carefully screened from view.

"We're all fine, really."

Well, Damon supposes it's only a slight stretch, given her chronic death wish, Stefan's recovering-bloodaholic funk and his own perpetual state of disaster.

"I know what I must have put everyone through, and I'm sorry for that," Elena sighs, "but I had to".

"I know," replies Ric seriously, "That doesn't mean I'm okay with it."

Word, vampire hunter. _Word_.

"I know." Elena looks chastened (or at least gives a impression convincing enough that Damon considers it's likely to fool Ric, who, he reminds himself, is still new to this parenting game). "And I'll deal with all the consequences and recriminations later, I promise." She offers Ric sincerely, guilelessness on full wattage. "But right now, I really just want to get out of these boots and scrape a couple of layers of mascara off."

And it sounds like such a harmless, easy thing to do, doesn't it? Slipping off shoes and makeup removal? And Elijah, who variously compelled and killed the rest of Klaus's men before Elena even had a chance to phone home has assured them personally the property is safe and at their disposal.

But this is Elena. Who knows what trouble she can get in between here and finding a bathroom.

Damon is just about to offer - no, _instruct_ her, that he's coming with when she opens her mouth again.

"I'll meet you all back at the house. Just give me a minute okay?"

And that's the moment. Right there. When she turns those beautiful doe eyes, giving a dark soulful look...

To his brother.

"I need to talk to Stefan."

Of _course_ she does.

"Well,_ I_, Ric, need a drink. Coming?"

* * *

><p>Elena gazes in the mirror.<p>

She looks like herself again, yet she feels like she's looking at the face of a stranger.

Still, better a stranger than Katherine. And the challenges of the day aren't going to disappear if she spends the rest of it in the bathroom.

She emerges to find Stefan sitting on a rust-colored settee, elbow on knees and hands steepled to his chin. Waiting for her.

She'd thought he'd wait forever for her, not so very long ago.

But that was before he'd left her, left all of them, to save his brother.

She knows it was to save them all, in his own way.

And she doesn't blame him anymore. Not at all. She's not the lovestruck young teenager she was even six months ago. She understands that life is not so simple as it once seemed - as she has tried, and failed to force it to be.

Stefan drops his hands, crossing them over his knees as he looks up at her.

"We need to talk."

"I know."

Elena drops to the seat beside him.

"Life just never gets any easier does it?"

"Oh, I don't know, as one who has had a lot of experience, I think you've had a particularly hard decade. You've been through a lot. You've lost more than some people do in a lifetime," Stefan says seriously.

"It's not always going to be like this, Elena."

"Isn't it? I don't know. I don't know what life's going to be. I just know I'm not dealing with it very well."

"Elena, you deal with life better than anyone I know."

It's what people always do. Treat her like she is this perfect, blameless little life-sized doll. Even when her own parents died because she'd snuck out to a party that she shouldn't have even been at, not once did anyone blame Elena.

No, it was all allowances and commiserations, care packages and sympathy. Which somehow made it worse. Maybe if just one person had said it out loud, if she'd had something tangible to fight, to raise a defense against... but there was nothing but her own inner critic, her own sense of guilt. A nebulous foe impossible to grapple with, let alone subdue.

"Stefan, I may not go on blood benders or snap and kill people, but that doesn't mean I don't screw things up."

"Like right now. Everyone I know and love has been uprooted from their homes and traveled halfway across the country, risking their lives and everything they care about for me, because of me. And I just bailed on all of them without explanation, or thanks, or anything."

Elena sighs.

"And I know I shouldn't have. I should have stayed and explained. I just... couldn't deal with all the questions and recriminations. And I'm sure Ric was about to launch into some fatherly lecture that was going to end in him grounding me for the rest of my natural life."

Stefan's lip quirks unwillingly. "Good luck with that."

"Look, Elena," Stefan says reassuringly, "no one will blame you for taking some time out. It's only natural after everything you've been through."

"But I am sorry, Stefan, that I made everyone worry. That I left the Abbey without telling anyone, but I couldn't. You know what would have happened."

What still could have happened, if Caroline didn't have such a blessedly big mouth. God, if it hadn't been for her... Elena shudders.

"I _do_ know, Elena. And Bonnie should have said something. Damon, stubborn bastard that he can be, should have said something."

"Or _I_ should have said something?" She'd thought it over, all the possibilities. All the scenarios. "But then what, Stefan? One or the other would have given yourselves up anyway. It's not what I wanted."

"I understand, Elena, and I know why you did what you did." Stefan replies soberly. "I'm not angry with you for that."

Stefan passes a hand wearily over his face.

_For that, _he'd said.

"So what are you angry with me about?"

"I'm not angry Elena."

But a shadow passes over his features, and it's one that Elena recognizes. After all, she's seen it before, and recently.

In the barn.

He'd had the same look then, registering moments after the shock at seeing her launch herself over the stable door.

And a fraction of a second after she'd screamed his brother's name.

Hurt. Devastation. And... resignation.

No, she hasn't been handling life well, not at all, or she would have done something about this by now.

Sure, she could argue that there's been an awful lot of chaos lately and precious little time to process. That she's been distracted with bigger things; Things like trying to survive, and to protect the people around her.

But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, or what lengths you go to, you end up hurting them anyway.

She owes Stefan too much respect to pretend she doesn't know what this is about.

"He thought Katherine was me, Stefan. And you know Damon. You know what he would have done."

"He would have died trying to save you." Stefan acknowledges.

"You know, Elena," he says carefully, "I didn't know it was Katherine either."

"I know," she admits quietly.

"So I have to ask, Elena..." He pauses to choose his words carefully, "after everything we've been through, and all that I've given up for you, did you not think I would have died to save you too?"

It's difficult, sometimes, to translate your thoughts and your deeds into words. To articulate the reasons why, you have to first tease them out, make sense of what sometimes seems insensible, or overwhelming, or both. Most of the time, it seems like she's feeling her way as she goes.

She starts with what she's surest of.

"No, Stefan, I know you would. Both of you would, I do know that." As much as she often wishes they wouldn't.

"It's just - " she shrugs helplessly, grappling to put words around the truth of the matter.

"You would have thought about it first".

But just because it's true doesn't mean it won't hurt him, and she cuts off what she knows is Stefan's immediate protest.

"Just a split-second, that's all it would take. You would have considered what it meant, and then you would have done it anyway".

She squeezes his hand, "And that's not a bad thing, Stefan. I love that about you. That you're thoughtful. That you consider things - everything - before you act. That's just not Damon."

If only she didn't, on some level, love that about him as well.

Stefan shifts slightly to turn towards her.

"Elena, I just need you to be honest with me, even if it's only this once."

"Is that all it was about?"

And she can tell by his eyes, green and soulful and understanding, that he already knows.

And he can tell by her silence, and the tears that are now welling in her eyes, that now she knows too.

"I'm sorry, Stefan."

Stefan leans back against the settee and closes his eyes.

"You know what? You shouldn't be," he offers without malice.

"I realized something on the road, with both of us on our way here to find you."

He opens his eyes, and reaches out a hand, gently wiping away the tear that's slipped down her cheek.

"I have my brother back."

"And he's not the evil shadow of my brother, the manic psychopath who has been terrorizing my life for over a century and a who just tortured me with his likeness. It's the brother I used to know. Who used to play football and protect me from father. The brother I loved and adored and knew loved me in return. The brother that was the reason that, deep down, I could never stake him, even as the monster he became."

"After all this time I was sure - so sure, Elena - that I'd lost him forever. But I have him back and it's thanks to you," he says with sincerity.

"And I love you both, Elena. I do. but if I had to choose between you - if someone told me that I could have you back but in return I'd have to lose him again, hell, I can't say I wouldn't choose him either."

He looks at her helplessly.

"So how can I blame you for doing the same?"

And it's not the most convincing smile Elena's ever seen, but she can see how hard he's trying. And it's everything she loves about him. It really is.

"Stefan Salvatore, I do love you," she whispers.

"I'm sorry that wasn't enough."


	24. Of Monsters and Men

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

**Reviews are my reward. If you enjoy, I'd love it if you took a moment to leave one :)**

**A/N: **

_** Special thanks to my lovely reviewers (awesomely, it turns out all my reviewers are lovely :) ). I really do appreciate y'all for coming by and dropping a note. Makes publishing way less scary :) Phew!**_

* * *

><p>"I was seriously going to start cutting back on this stuff," Ric remarks, studying the amber liquid slopping about in his glass.<p>

"I think you picked the wrong week for that, Ric," Damon observes, emptying his own and generously pouring another. He notices that when he moves the bottle to top up Ric's supply, he doesn't exactly encounter any resistance. Which is lucky. He really needs his wingman _not_ to go all teetotaler on him right at this moment.

"So what now?" Asks Ric.

What Damon is going to do now, is drink, and pointedly ignore the fact that Ric just witnessed that whole "longing looks across the driveway" episode that got shot down when Elena chose to go and console her sweetheart instead.

But what he actually says is, "Well, the big bad hybrid's vanquished. Even Katherine is, for all practical purposes, out of commission. I guess my work here is done."

Ric looks him over in a perceptive, compassionate way that suggests a distinct lack of cooperation with Damon's campaign of ignoring the obvious.

"You're not thinking of leaving, are you?"

Well, _of course_ he's thinking about leaving.

The truth is, he's always thinking about leaving. More often than not, it's the first thing on is mind when he wakes up, if not the last before he drifts to sleep: the thought of blowing out of Mystic Falls and all it's accompanying entanglements and regrets and never looking back.

And he's tried. Really he has. There's been so many times he's packed his bag, loaded up the Camaro. Even got out as far as Austin, once.

He was back by the weekend.

"You know, you might have got Elijah to agree to hold off resuscitating the rest of the family until we are all safely gone, but still... There's no guarantee they'll be as grateful as he thinks," ventures Ric.

"You don't trust Elijah?"

"Well, _you_ sure as hell don't." Ric snorts. "To be fair, Elijah seems honorable enough. But however well-intentioned and 'noble' he might be, he can't speak for the rest of his family."

"Well, even Elijah may not be quite so grateful once he's noticed we've got into his family's good stuff". Damon points out, as he moves to pour another generous measure of said good stuff into both their glasses.

Ric puts a hand on his, stopping him this time. "My point is, we'll still need you."

"_She'll_ need you." He adds quietly, watchfully.

Don't believe what you hear. Alaric Saltzman can be a real bastard.

"Low blow, Ric."

"I use whatever works. Can't lose my drinking partner. Everyone else around her is either underage or in need of a substance sponsor." He grins.

"I thought you were quitting?"

He shrugs nonplussed, and Damon shoves his hand away to pour a double.

"She doesn't need me though, Ric, that's just the point. None of you do. If you'll just admit it, you're better off without me."

"You're wrong."

Such conviction. Such heartfelt, naive and utterly misplaced conviction.

"You _say_ that. You even think it. But it's because you're deluded, the lot of you."

Because he is selfish. And reckless and impulsive.

_"You are a spoilt brat, Niklaus. You think only of yourself and you don't care who you hurt in the process."_

He knows where this story ends, eventually. He's just seen it. The pain in Elijah's eyes. The centuries of love turned to disappointment and betrayal. It's a look with which he's all too familiar. He's seen it himself, on others' faces, a thousand times.

And he is tired. He is tired of seeing it. Of being the reason for it. Or just wondering how long this time, till he hurts the ones he loves again.

"I almost got Elena killed today".

That seems to sober Ric right up, Damon notes, as the teacher sits ups straighter.

"What happened?"

"Klaus was about to kill Katherine." Damon explains tersely.

"Only I didn't know it was Katherine."

"You thought it was Elena?"

Damon thins his lips in confirmation.

It had been so long, he'd forgotten what if felt like...

Real, bone-deep fear.

He'd forgotten the way it tastes, acrid in your mouth, the way it blankets over you until the world fades away and nothing else exists - nothing but the sight of Klaus fixing on the brown-haired girl in front of him, and the certain knowledge it's all about to be over.

"And you got in the middle of it."

It's not a question.

"I was about to." Damon clenches his jaw in anger. "Until Elena did first."

"Because she _knew_ the fact that it's physically impossible for me to tear out the heart of an invincible original hybrid wasn't going to stop me from trying."

He is still dealing with the panic of almost losing her, still dealing with the anger of very nearly being the one responsible.

"It could have gone very, very badly".

"But you didn't know".

"It doesn't matter."

"Of _course_ it matters." Ric sighs in exasperation. He shakes his head.

"Damon, I'm not going to argue that you haven't done plenty of stupid, idiotic things, but this one you did because you love her."

Well, thank you for that, Captain Obvious.

Why can't he make him understand?

"_That_, Ric" Damon punctuates the word with a thump of his drink on the table, "is exactly the problem. Because it doesn't matter how hard I try to be the better man, or better vampire, or whatever the hell else kind of magical unicorn shit she wants from me this week, that's never going to change."

Because he's a psychotic narcissistic killer with obsessional tendencies, who has, unfortunately for her, fallen hopelessly, irrevocably, all-consumedly in love with a girl who deserves, by rights, to be as far away from him as possible.

"When it comes to her, I'm _always_ going to be doing the stupid reckless thing. Because I love her, and because I am what I am. And it doesn't matter what that does to my brother, or to Elena, or to me. I'm not going to stop."

He'd come to that conclusion long ago. Good sense be damned. Brother be damned. There's nothing on this earth that can stop his love for that girl, no matter how consuming, miserable or destructive it might be.

_You think only of yourself and you don't care who you hurt in the process._

"Let's face it, Ric - I don't know how not to be in love with her. I can't. I've _tried_. What am I supposed to do?"

"I mean, it's not like you can get some kind of pill for that, or..."

Damon stops, struck by a sudden thought.

_Or..._

"Or what, Damon?" Ric asks warily.

It's just so simple, so obvious, that Damon doesn't know why he didn't think of it long ago.

"Damon?"

Maybe he just didn't want to.

* * *

><p>Damon's sudden halt mid-tirade makes Ric mildly apprehensive. The look on his face, which Ric has seen just a handful of times before, usually with disastrous consequences, shoots him straight to alarmed.<p>

"Or _what_, Damon?"

"Or, you know..." Damon mulls consideringly, "...there's a vampire-compelling original about who, for the first and probably last time in his very long existence, is in my debt, and could make me anything I wanted to be. Or that she wanted me to be. Including not in love with her."

"Okay. That's it. I'm cutting you off."

Ric knew this stuff was strong but _Jesus_.

He grabs for the bottle, but Damon pulls it away.

"Why?" Damon retorts. "It would solve everyone's problems, wouldn't it?"

"Because you haven't filled your quota of stupid idiotic things to do today? Tell me you're not serious."

He can't be.

Can he?

Damon shrugs in a noncommittal way that Ric finds completely non-reassuring.

Honestly, sometimes Damon seems to be the most intelligent person Ric knows, but other times - like right now - Ric wonders if it's the same mad brilliance of Albert Einstein or Jack Parsons.

Yeah, now that he thinks of it, definitely Jack Parsons. Ric can see Damon going in a ball of fiery self-induced explosion, if left to his own devices.

"No Damon, it most certainly would not solve everything. For a start, Elena wouldn't want it. Neither would Stefan. You know they wouldn't."

And, hey, while they're dealing with the elephant in the room, he may as well go there...

"Besides, what if she loves you?"

And someone who didn't know Damon as well as Ric does probably wouldn't notice how hard Damon tries not to visibly react to the statement. There's barely a twitch in his cheek, the merest flicker in his eyes, but to Ric it speaks volumes.

Yet still...

"She doesn't." Damon says flatly.

"And what if she does?" Ric counters.

Because frankly, for someone so perceptive, Damon seems to be missing what's become fairly obvious to Ric, and probably everyone else in Mystic Falls by now - with the possible exception of Stefan, who's had the advantage of having spent half the summer in a blood haze, and Elena, who seems to deal with the idea of loving Damon even more badly than Damon does.

"Anyway, Ric, you of all people should appreciate just how disastrous that would be," Damon says dismissively.

"Does your self-loathing really run so deep that you actually believe that, Damon?"

"Is your denial so great that you don't? I can't change what I am, Ric."

Same tune, different day.

And, really, Ric is _so_ sick of this bullshit.

He clamps his hand on Damon's leather-clad shoulder, staring deep into the eyes of his sometimes-drinking-buddy, sometimes-comrade-at-arms, and always-friend, determined that he should see for himself just how serious he is about this.

"I know what you are, Damon, and I know who you are. And _I_ don't believe that for one second. Hell, you have changed, even since I've known you. I don't understand why you are so afraid to admit it."

"And I sure as hell can't believe you'd really let yourself be neutered by some hoity toity original with a stick up his ass just to avoid a little of life's unpleasantness."

"Besides," he adds, with more assurance than he feels, "It's the coward's way out. And of all the things I know about you, the good, the bad, and the pretty damn terrible, the one thing I know you've never been is a coward."

"Ric, you do realize I spent almost 150 years choosing not to feel," Damon retorts. "Just because it was easier. Because it didn't hurt so damn much."

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do."

This is all drunk bravado speaking, Ric is sure of it.

Well, 90 percent sure.

"I know you, Damon."

"_I know you,_" he repeats carefully, "and you won't do it."

Maybe 85.

"Of course I won't," Damon says, shrugging Ric off, face completely deadpan.

Well, Ric supposes, he could try to be a _little_ more convincing about it, but as far as assurances go, he figures it's the best he's going to get for now.

The best thing to do in the meantime, is to get Damon - get all of them - through this, till they can get back to Mystic Falls and try and piece the rest of their lives together.

Deciding this time it's his turn to pour, Ric reaches for the bottle... Which turns out to be just slightly problematic, since its no longer there.

And neither is Damon.

_Shit_.

As he stares into the empty space now in front of him, Alaric Saltzman decides it's time he had a heart to heart with the daughter he never had.

* * *

><p>"So you are staying, after all? I had wondered."<p>

For an old guy, Elijah can really sneak up on you.

Damon looks up from the bag he's just thrown on the bed, effectively claiming what Damon suspects from the size, location and odd pieces of tack hanging from the walls, was once the domain of head stable master. It's away from the main house and the rest of the Scooby gang with all their associated emotional complications, and smells of wood, and leather soap, and it makes him feel vaguely at home.

"I've tried leaving this lot unsupervised before." He says in response to Elijah's question.

"It always ends tragically, trust me."

"And I trust the facilities are to your liking?" Elijah pauses in the doorway, running a finger down the jamb and checking it for dust. "I hadn't personally been here in some time - at least not that I have conscious recollection of - but Klaus seems to have arranged for things to be kept things up... adequately."

Damon had made all kinds of vows to himself, about not rubbing the entirely-too-powerful original up the wrong way now that they've reached a truce of sorts. He struggles to remember why it had appeared so important at the time as Elijah, ignoring his obvious lack of invitation, enters the room.

The original passes him completely, making his way to the far wall where a bridle hangs in large shiny loops from a hook.

"You like horses, Damon?"

When he doesn't answer, Elijah adds, "Cars are so... impersonal. I miss the relationship between a man and the horse that carried him."

"Maybe you just haven't met the right car yet."

The original doesn't respond, instead stroking the leather in apparent reminiscence.

"Can I help you with something, Elijah?" Damon asks pointedly.

The elder vampire turns, crossing his arms as he leans back against the wood paneling.

"That's strange, Damon. I'd heard that you were wanting me to help you with something?"

Damon stiffens.

"Eavesdropping, Elijah? That's not very gentlemanly."

Elijah narrows his eyes infinitesimally.

"Damon, I am a thousand-year old, true immortal who has powers you cannot dream of possessing. What do I care for your little lives and their dramatics?"

"No," he continues, "Elena told me."

And how did -

_Ric_.

Apparently there's no one in the 21st Century who understands the meaning of the word 'discretion'. Can't a man let off a little steam without dealing with repercussions from vampires that are older than time?

"You were misinformed," Damon says shortly. "I don't want your help. I don't need it."

"No. I don't suppose you do."

Before Damon has a chance to process that, Elijah disengages himself from the wall, making his way back across the room. Damon wonders, hopefully, if he is finally going to leave him in peace. Instead, when he approaches where Damon stands by the bed, he pauses.

"You know, I knew a girl once."

"Let me guess: _Tatiana_. The original doppelganger."

Damon is rewarded by Elijah's look of surprise. You don't see that too often.

"Your brother told me all about her. I was something of a... captive audience, I suppose you could say."

"Did he just?" Elijah responds, sounding less than impressed.

"Yeah. She was your girl. Unfortunately, she was previously engaged to what may have been the original in-laws from hell. You broke it off a day too late, they broke..." - no way to put this delicately - "...her."

Pursed lips, Elijah lets that slide.

"Did he also tell you why I agreed to break it off at all?"

"It was you?" Damon echoes, surprised.

"Her betrothed came to me, man to man, as he put it," Elijah spits in derision. "He asked me what kind of life I really thought I could offer her."

Elijah looks back towards the wall, its inset window, as if his thoughts are again lost in rememberings of the past.

"He knew what I was, you see. His family told him. He pointed out to me that I was a demon, a being rooted in evil, and that I would damn her by association if I remained with her. He insisted that she deserved better than that. That if I really loved her, I would let her go."

"And do you know, fool that I was, I actually believed him."

Damon looks at the proud profile, the regal way that Elijah holds his handsome head above strong shoulders, the frame that could tear a mountain apart with its bare hands if it wanted, and tries to reconcile it with this story of self-imagined unworthiness.

"His family told him, you know. About their plan to sacrifice Tatiana, at the end. He told me he'd tried to stop it, but 'there was no persuading them'."

"You weren't convinced?" Damon asks, interested in Elijah's side of the story despite himself.

"I told him I doubted the truth of that, given he was alive and Tatiana was not. A real man would not have let anything stop him."

"And of course, then there was the small fact that he'd known that she was coming to say goodbye that night..."

"You think he sold her out," concludes Damon.

"I couldn't make him admit to it. He swore to me he did not." Elijah turns back to Damon, wearing a twisted semblance of a smile, "But, one never can trust those death bed confessions." Beneath it, Elijah's face is cold, aloof, and by all appearances impenetrable. But Damon knows this game. He plays it often enough himself, to guess at what it covers.

It makes him more delicate than he might otherwise have been, in what he says next.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your girl, Elijah. I really am."

"And don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't appreciate the glimpse into the tragic turns of a broken original youth, but... I'm little unclear on why it is you're telling _me_ this."

"Must I explain _everything_ to you young vampires?" Elijah hisses impatiently.

"It's a story, Damon; it has a moral."

"I was _wrong_, Damon. I was wrong about who and what was evil, who was deserving of Tatiana and her love. I was wrong to let her go and it was the most costly mistake I ever made."

"If there's anything I've learned over the last thousand years, Damon, it's that it's not what we are that makes us monsters."

"It's who we choose to be."

And as Elijah finally turns to go, Damon can't help the question.

"Elijah, what did Elena say to you?"

"Not very much. That you might ask me to compel you. She wanted me to promise not to. Told me that I _owed her_ for her part in freeing me. I am hearing that a lot lately," he mutters.

"And that's all she told you?"

"Yes, Damon," Elijah says, slightly impatiently.

"And that highly non-specific request was enough to prompt you to regale me with your own personal addendum to Aesop's fables?"

"Well, no. Not _just_ that."

Elijah shrugs. The ghost of a smile flirts at his lips.

"Perhaps I eavesdrop a little".


	25. While you were Sleeping

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show, characters, book series, etc, etc.**

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**FINAL CHAPTER. Here we go...**

* * *

><p>Damon finally finds her asleep in the back of his Camaro.<p>

Her inky hair is spread out against the blue seats like a fallen angel. With those long limbs in such a confined space, she ought to be seriously uncomfortable. She could at least have the decency to look a little awkward.

Frankly, she has no right at all to look so thoroughly at home in the backseat of his convertible.

Still, Damon can't ignore that small, primal piece of him that feels a possessive satisfaction at the sight that runs to the bone.

"_Elena_?" he murmurs.

Nothing.

Elena lies still but for her small human chest, gently rising and falling, slow, and steady, and utterly oblivious to his presence. Apparently trekking halfway across the country, staging a daring vampire rescue and saving his life (twice) are all she has room in the tank for.

_Lightweight_.

Damon had plans, you know.

Determined plans. Hard-nosed plans, even. He was going to get answers. There was to be examinations and interrogations, ultimatums and demands; he was going to have them all, and he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

Hell, the Goddammed Spanish Inquisition wasn't going to hold a candle to him.

"Elena?"

The angel sleeps on, all innocence and beauty, even with that faint line of drool that bleeds down the corner of her chin.

Well - shit.

Resignedly, Damon gently scoops Elena out of the car.

She stirs just enough to adjust herself in his arms, turning a cheek into his jacket and sighing contentedly.

And with that, his best laid plans evaporate.

* * *

><p>As Elena drifts towards consciousness the first thing she's aware of is a vague feeling that something isn't right.<p>

Information seeps through, slowly making its way into her fuzzy, sleep fuddled brain.

This is not her bed. It doesn't feel like her bed. It doesn't smell like her bedroom.

Is that what's wrong?

But no, she hasn't been in her own bed for days. She hasn't been _home_ for days.

The events of the past days fall back to her in waves: being on the road with Damon, cheap motels and monasteries, saving Damon, finding Stefan. Klaus, Katherine, Elijah.

Damon.

Why is she in bed? Where is Damon's car?

Where is Damon?

Elena jerks into awareness with a start, opening her eyes and bolting upright.

"Whoa, there..."

_Damon_.

The vampire himself, in the far-too-good-looking flesh, is perched on the side of the bed, hands raised in a gesture of defense.

"...you don't want to take someone's eye out."

"Thank God," is the first thoughtless thing she blurts out.

"You're welcome," returns Damon, folding his arms and smirking.

Elena looks down to find herself fully clothed, resting on clean white sheets. She doesn't recognize the room.

"Are we... is this..." Elena looks about her in confusion, "Are we still on the Mikaelson property?"

"Yup."

Damon doesn't offer anything else, continuing to watch her in silent amusement.

"How long have I been here?" Elena asks.

"An hour or two. You were out like a light." His eyes drift over her assessingly, and Elena feels suddenly self-conscious. She runs a hand over her face and absurdly wishes she had a hair brush handy.

Which is ridiculous, of course. Damon's seen her at her worst. Hell, he's seen her dead, thanks to Klaus's curse-breaking ritual. She doubts that was her best look.

"So..." Damon drawls, "...is this carjacking thing a new habit I have to worry about?"

"I don't think it counts if I didn't actually drive it anywhere," Elena points out defensively.

"_This time," _he points out in return, blue eyes challenging.

Oh. _Right_.

She'd forgotten about that already.

And honestly, she hadn't given much thought to it even at the time. She'd just done what she'd needed to do. Besides, it's not like _he'd_ have had much ongoing use for his car if he'd gone ahead with what he and Bonnie had planned.

Elena pales at the thought of how close she could have come to losing him.

"It's not like you gave me much of a choice there, Damon."

"Everyone always has a choice, Elena," Damon says enigmatically.

"No, Damon, actually, they don't," she replies hotly.

She happens to be feeling fairly strongly about that actually, right at this moment.

_I will always choose you._

Damn it. These flashbacks are not helping her keep a steady head.

Neither is Damon, sitting far too close for comfort, and looking far too beautiful in the afternoon sunlight; it reflects off his glossy locks of raven hair, sweeping its way lovingly over cheekbones and doing sinful things for those crystalline eyes.

Stupid. Beyond stupid, to actually feel jealous of a sunbeam.

"Fine." Damon narrows those eyes for a moment. "So you weren't carjacking, technically, according to the laws of Virginia. Care to elaborate on what drove you to car... squatting, then?"

"I couldn't find you," she says, like that explains everything.

And she couldn't. She'd searched most of the main house without success before she'd finally stumbled on to Elijah (or, more honestly, when Elijah had politely enquired why she was turning his recently reacquired household upside down) which was when she'd moved to plan B: Asking the original for a favor and staking out Damon's car instead.

"And what? Needed a nap between checking the ashtray and glovebox for loose vampires? It's not a large car, Elena. I clearly wasn't in it."

Elena sighs in exasperation. Why is he being so difficult?

"I didn't want you to... leave without talking to me, alright?"

Damon seems to consider this, leaning back and rubbing lean fingers against his chin thoughtfully.

"Okay," he finally accepts.

"So talk then."

"What?"

"You just said that the reason you'd practically pitched a tent in the back seat of my car was because you wanted to talk to me, Elena." Damon explains patiently.

"So..." He draws out the word like a song, "_talk_".

_Oh_.

"I... Well..."

She pauses, marshaling the reasons that seemed so important not too long ago. Still are, really. It's just that when Damon's in the room, she tends to stop thinking in reasons.

"Ric said you were thinking of leaving," Elena bites her lip. "And he said you were talking crazy."

"I _am_ crazy, Elena, as you well know. Nothing new to worry you there, surely?" He draws his eyebrows together and tilts his head as if this is conversation is all very academic.

Why is he being like this?

_Fine_. She can play it his way.

"He also said you were talking about asking Elijah to _compel_ you, Damon," she says accusingly, going straight to the heart of the matter.

"Oh yeah. I did hear that cat was out of the bag," responds Damon, nonplussed.

"You..." How? Where? "Ric told you?"

Elena is confused. Did the vampire hunter succeed where she had failed? Did he find Damon while she was sleeping? Why isn't he here, then, making sure Damon doesn't do something rash, like chase down an original for a partial lobotomy?

"Not Ric, Elena."

"Then who -?"

"Elijah."

Elijah.

_Elijah_?

Elena feels her entire body go icy. And then hot. White hot.

He _didn't_.

Before she's even aware of what she's doing, Elena is on her knees, throwing both fists against Damon's chest as she slams her body weight behind them.

"How could you?" she cries.

Because she hadn't really believed it. That he could actually do it. Give her up. Give _them_ up, despite of all the reasons she's given him and the pain she's caused. She'd assumed stupidly that he wouldn't. That he couldn't. _Trusted_ it, like so many other trusts she'd taken for granted with him. And she feels useless, entirely useless, and so very human as she barrels ineffectually into him, his supernaturally strong body choosing not giving an inch under her onslaught.

No, Damon doesn't give in, and he doesn't back down. Instead, his body remains firm, but he gentles her barrage of fists by covering them with his own, pulling her further into him as he unfurls her hands against his.

"I couldn't, Elena," he murmurs.

"Of course I couldn't."

He twists his mouth lopsidedly as he looks down at her. "I was just being drunk and hotheaded when I was talking to Ric. You know what I'm like." He frowns, as if in self-recrimination. "Loving you is the single worst and best thing that has happened to me and, God help me, I could never willingly let that go." He gives a mirthless bark of laughter. "Even if I ought to."

But through the relief that floods her, Elena is not ready to concede so easily.

"Then why did you go to Elijah?" she protests.

"I didn't. He came to me." Damon shrugs in a "who knows why originals do what they do" kind of way.

He finally frees her hands with obvious reluctance, skimming down her forearms with the lightest of touches as he releases his grip. But Elena leaves her hands where they rest, cradled against the planes of his chest, unwilling, just yet, to let him go.

Damon stares at them.

Then he stares at her.

He locks her gaze, a question in his ice blue eyes as he carefully lifts a hand to trail tentative fingers along her arm.

"I suppose..." he ventures, "that he had something to say that he thought I needed to hear."

"And did you?" Elena asks, a little breathlessly. "Need to hear what he had to say?"

"Honestly, Elena," he continues his careful, venerable exploration across her collarbone, smooth fingers gliding across warm skin, then finally sliding upwards to tilt her chin towards him, "I'd rather hear what you have to say."

"Care to tell me," he breathes, "what was so important that you'd go behind my back to make yet another deal with a crusty old vampire who not only has proven credibility issues but is _clearly_ way past his prime?" His lips lift slightly beneath eyes that seem playful. Only someone focused as intently on them as she is could catch their faint shadow of hesitancy.

"I..." She licks her lips, and Damon's eyes immediately focus on the movement. His eyes smoulder, pupils dilating, as he seems to hold himself back with effort.

Elena wishes he wouldn't.

How the hell, she wonders, have they even made it this far?

Now that she's acknowledged it, she realizes just how badly she's been holding back herself. It seems like on some deep, mostly unacknowledged level, she's spent so much effort on trying not to love him - not to fall for that heart; not to touch that skin; not to kiss those lips (and let's be honest, she's been spectacularly failing at that lately) - it's no wonder she was exhausted.

She's been trying to hold it all back so hard, for so long, she's not even sure she knows how to let go.

Damon leans in, bringing that heart, that skin, those lips, in closer (far too close) to whisper against her ear.

"Tell me."

Except she's pretty sure he already knows. Her mouth might be behind the game, but her body is way ahead of her. Her skin tingles with fiery warmth where Damon's free hand has slipped under the shirt at her waist. Her hands have clawed their way to fist into his shirt, where she can feel his immortal heart pounding just underneath her palms, making her feel heady and powerful.

Damon brushes his smooth nose against her cheek, nudges gently into her jaw.

"Tell me," he repeats, urgently.

"I..."

How does he expect her to talk? How is she even supposed to think, with him so close to her.

"_Tell me_?" he cajoles on a whisper.

But she can't. She can't hear herself think over the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. She can't breathe when he's taken all the air from the room.

Damon drifts downward, bending his head to examine the puncture wounds of his own making, kissing them lightly, reverently. He gently laves them with his tongue as Elena's hands move to grip his neck, giving into the urge to run her fingers through his silky hair as she opens her neck to give him better access.

Damon groans in defeat.

"_Fuck_, Elena."

And then he's at her throat, her jaw, his soft lips pressing against her skin, teasing velvety nips that become more insistent until Elena is the one that, desperate to taste him, brings his mouth to hers. Growling, he angles his head to get better access, heat on heat and tongue on tongue, hungry and demanding and until she feels like all there is in the universe is kissing Damon, that this was all she was ever created for.

It's as if this is what she's been craving all her life; the salty tang of Damon Salvatore; and eagerly she drinks in all he offers; the power, the softness, the strength, the love. It ought to be overwhelming, yet she fears she can't get enough.

Finally, Damon pulls back long enough to cradle her head in his hands, searching her face with eyes too blue and too beautiful to bear. Taking a shuddering breath, he rests his forehead against hers.

She can do this.

He deserves this.

Focus, Elena.

_Focus_.

"I wasn't worried about you leaving."

"What?" Damon, sounding slightly dazed, lifts his dark head from hers.

"I didn't fall asleep in your car because I had a problem with you leaving, Damon."

He's looking at her confused, hair thoroughly tousled, sticking up at odd angles but still looking like the most gorgeous creature she has ever seen on earth.

Elena presses on before she loses her nerve.

"Hell, it wasn't even that I was worried that you'd leave before I told you that I love you."

Damon blinks. Twice. Then a third time.

"I just didn't want you to leave without me."

And finally something processes.

His mouth curves, slowly at first, blooming into a smile so large it can barely fit his beautiful face. Blue eyes ignite dangerously as Elena detects a cockiness rating gone completely off the scale - and she doesn't even mind.

"Not going to happen." he promises. "Never going to happen".

"Now, shut up woman."

"I thought you wanted me to talk?" she asks with mock seriousness, pushing back against him playfully.

"Over-rated," Damon breathes, capturing her hands and suckling her fingers. Then her shoulder. The soft spot behind her ear. Elena loses track somewhere around the vicinity of her right temple.

He pushes her back against the bed.

And Elena lets go.

* * *

><p><em>** THE END **<em>

* * *

><p>o<p>

o

o

**A/N:**

_**So we got there! My little story/introductory foray into fanfic, which I thought would take about 10k words, turned out a wee bit epic. Because apparently, I just don't know how to start small. Whoops?**_

_**Anyway, Kudos to those who made it all the way with me. Patience of Job, etc etc :)**_

_**To the new readers out there... thanks for taking the journey with me, and feel free to drop a review - and special shout out to Lizzy Salvatore-Cooper-Grey for being reviewer 100 ;) Woo hoo! Triple digits!**_

_**It's been a swell (if scary) ride :o**_

_**I hope you all enjoyed and maybe I'll see you here again some time :)**_

_**xox**_


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